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EW NEWS & OPINION 10 Kenneth Rosenthal, M.D., the ophthalmologist who introduced Rep. Hayworth, said meeting one- on-one with the legislators to ex- plain the views of the Alliance was a must. "I was very pleased at the re- sponsiveness of the Senate and Con- gressional representatives with whom we visited, both in terms of their knowledge of the issues as well as their willingness to be open to our concerns," Dr. Rosenthal said. "We also had the opportunity to dis- cuss the Medicare Patient Empower- ment Act, which reintroduces the possibility of physicians forming pri- vate contracts on an individual basis without the current onerous 2-year opt-out and being subject to means testing. This would allow a shifting of costs to the private sector, effec- tively allowing Congress to balance the Medicare budget without physi- cians having to be forced to accept artificial fee limitations, which do not reflect the value of services pro- vided or operational practice costs. Many of the legislators were not aware of this bill and were impressed (on both sides of the aisle, interest- ingly) by the fairness and practical- ity of this prospective measure." ASCRS President Edward J. Hol- land, M.D., professor of ophthal- mology, University of Cincinnati, and director, cornea service, Cincin- nati Eye Institute, went with Al- liance members to legislators' offices. He said it's important for ophthalmologists to be active in the political arena. "It means a lot when a legislator sees that an ophthalmologist takes his or her time to come out of the office to lay out the issues and rec- ommendations that we have that are important to ophthalmology and medicine as a whole," he said. Brock K. Bakewell, M.D., clini- cal assistant professor of ophthal- mology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, and chair of the ASCRS government relations committee, agreed. He also traveled to Capitol Hill to talk about the issues. "I was glad they were willing to hear us out," Dr. Bakewell said. "This is a critical time, and it's important to have face-to-face time with peo- ple who influence laws. I hope we have twice as many ASCRS members at the fly-in next year." EW September 2011 Doctors continued from page 3 Rep. Nan Hayworth (R-NY) and Ken Rosenthal, M.D. Alliance Fly-In participants Visit us at AAO Booth 2978

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