Eyeworld

16 | EYEWORLD | SPRING 2025 ASCRS NEWS GOVERNMENT RETIONS UPDATE by Ellen Stodola Editorial Co-Director Current chair reflects on his role ahead of transition P arag Parekh, MD, ASCRS Government Relations Committee Chair, reflected on his tenure in an inter- view with EyeWorld. He served two 3-year terms as chair during tumultuous times for ASCRS and the Government Relations Commit- tee and will continue to serve as Immediate Past Chair. Dr. Parekh first started on the committee in 2008, when Priscilla Arnold, MD, was the outgoing Government Relations chair and Brock Bakewell, MD, was the incoming chair. "I had a background in government relations, so Priscil- la and Brock asked me to serve as vice chair. I helped represent ASCRS at the AMA and RUC meetings and went on to represent ASCRS at various Quality Payment Program meetings," he said. Dr. Parekh highlighted some of the key ini- tiatives, advocacy efforts, and issues that have come up during his time on the committee, not- ing that the quality measures were a big issue, and ASCRS weighed in on these to try to help position ophthalmology as favorably as possible for reimbursement. Dr. Parekh took over as committee chair in 2019, just a short time before the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. "Just as we were starting to get things set up and make a smooth transition, we were plunged into crisis," he said. "We had to [fight] to not lose our Govern- ment Relations Committee and our political action committee, eyePAC, and not lose all of this amazing work and success the Govern- ment Relations department had done over the past 20 years," he said. In ophthalmology, only ASCRS and AAO have a political action com- mittee, and this is a valuable tool for us to fight for our members and our patients, he said. In addition, Nancey McCann, who had served as ASCRS Director of Government Relations for 28 years, was nearing retirement. "As small as ophthalmology is within all of Medicare, we do incredibly well because of the effectiveness of the ASCRS Government Relations program and how well we work with others within organized medicine, including AAO, the American Glau- coma Society, the American Society of Retina Specialists, and the AMA," Dr. Parekh said. "To lose the ASCRS Government Relations pro- gram would have been devastating. I fear for how quickly ophthalmology would have been knocked down in terms of compensation, and cataract surgery would have been degraded even worse than it already is." With recent updates to the ASCRS bylaws and the implementation of terms limits across all ASCRS leadership, there were also some changes to the Government Relations Com- mittee, with the addition of a number of new members and plans for many of the more senior committee members to rotate off in order to be in compliance with the term limits. The com- mittee is composed of ASCRS members who are well versed and have an interest in these issues, and this can often take years to cultivate. It's not uncommon, he said, for members of the committee to remain active for 10–20 years because institutional knowledge is so vital to our success. When Dr. Parekh rotates out of his role as chair, there will be several other longtime ASCRS Government Relations Committee members rotating out as well. "We have a new group of people who have joined us in the last 2 years, so we spent a lot of time getting them up to speed," he said. The committee has expand- ed and currently has 24 members, including non-voting liaisons from five ASCRS Clinical Committees and one from ASOA. The Govern- ment Relations Committee meets monthly to stay on top of important regulatory and advoca- cy issues. With these policies and topics, knowing the details and history is so important, Dr. Parekh said, because the people we're going up against are smart and have historical first-hand knowl- edge of the issues. "Sadly, in medicine, a lot of getting more money for your profession re- quires some other profession getting less money. Often, we're at odds with primary care. To go up against that, you have to have your ducks in a row and long-term knowledge," he said. A new chair for the ASCRS Government Relations Committee continued on page 18

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