Highlights from the 2018 legislative session on your behalf include: 

• Protecting patients by sponsoring AB 682 (Caballero), the Skin Cancer Protection Act - The CalDerm-sponsored bill aims to regulate tanning facilities by requiring registration, training and site inspections, to minimize the risk of melanoma.

• Fighting for fair payment - with AAD, CMA and other state dermatology societies, CalDerm is working to block health plans from cascading payments for same-day E/M services. Abnormalities found during pre-op screening is common in dermatology offices, and modifier 25 allows for reimbursement outside of global payment to allow same-day evaluation of those findings.  Allowing providers to be fully reimbursed for same-day services incentivizes efficient and high-quality care; Anthem’s proposed modifier 25 policy does the opposite, and your membership in CalDerm ensures broad and united opposition to this bad policy.

• Preventing added administrative hassle - CalDerm successfully lobbied against provisions of SB 798 (Hill) that would have burdened ambulatory surgical centers with onerous reporting requirements.

• Helping drug pricing transparency - CalDerm supported SB 17 to require drug makers to alert buyers of impending price hikes, and to required health plans to report on the how much is spent on prescription drugs. 

• Defending scope of practice - We and others successfully lobbied against AB 443 (Salas) and AB 1153 (Low), provisions of which would have expanded scope for optometrists and podiatrists, respectively, in ways that intrude on dermatology.   

• Supporting public safety - CalDerm and other organizations successful lobbied for the passage and signing of SB 258 (Lara), the Cleaning Product Right to Know Act, which require cleaning product companies to list ingredients both on product labels and online.