the value of vacep

Your membership has lapsed.
Here’s why you should renew.

Remaining a member of VACEP gives us strength in numbers as well as the financial and human resources so that we can support, protect, and empower all emergency physicians. Help us continue to tell our story and build a brighter future for emergency medicine. If your membership lapsed, we want to give you the reasons on why it’s important to renew.

Every year, the VACEP Board of Directors and other College volunteers donate thousands of hours to advocating for emergency medicine, amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of donated time. What is the result? In 2023 alone:

KEEPING YOU AND YOUR TEAMS SAFE: 24/7 TRAINED ED SECURITY

We introduced a first-of-its-kind bill, which passed and became law, requiring off-duty police or security officers trained in de-escalation and restraint in every ED 24/7. This law has already become a model for other states; North Carolina passed a law modeled after ours this summer. Here’s more.

KEEPING PATIENTS SAFE AND GIVING PARAMEDICS MORE RESPONSIBILITY: UPHOLDING SCOPE OF PRACTICE

• We prevented NPs from gaining the ability to practice independently with only two years of training. We successfully kept training to five years/9,000 hours of supervised training before a Nurse Practitioner can apply for independent practice.

• We helped pass a bill allowing paramedics to administer medications in an ED within their scope of training.

ENSURING FAIR REIMBURSEMENT: ENDING DOWNCODING

We fought for fair reimbursement for treating Medicaid patients. For three years, we opposed a harmful Virginia DMAS and CMS “Downcoding” policy in the state budget that reduced 790 of the most common ED diagnoses to a Level 1 reimbursement of $15 (more at vacep.org/downcoding). This policy cost Virginia ED groups millions annually, and thanks to VACEP and our partners’ efforts, it has been repealed. We are working to reimburse emergency physicians for charts downcoded since the policy went into effect in July 2020. That total? Millions.

LIMITING BUREAUCRACY: IMPROVING MEDICAL TDOS

VACEP leaders advocated for improvement to the bureaucratic medical TDO process. Legislation that passed and later became law allowed:

1. Emergency physicians able to get a medical TDO for intoxicated patients by allowing them to call magistrates — without calling courts first. 

2. For a new mechanism to release a patient under a TDO when they are in the ER and waiting for a bed, but, in waiting, no longer meet the criteria of being a danger to themselves or others. Community Services Boards can be called back in to re-evaluate a patient under a TDO. 

PROTECTING PHYSICIAN MENTAL HEALTH

We supported the removal of two questions on Virginia’s licensure, certification, and registration applications for doctors. These will help emergency physicians get treatment for mental health conditions without fear of repercussion. The questions were:

• Do you have any reason to believe that you would pose a risk to the safety or well-being of your patients or clients?

• Are you able to perform the essential functions of a practitioner in your area of practice with or without reasonable accommodation?

Our Issues page outlines the core areas in which we advocate for emergency medicine. Yet as importantly, remaining a VACEP member provides networking, personal and professional development, and relationships with emergency medicine leaders from a variety of practice environments. 

What can you do? Rejoin ACEP and support our actions to improve emergency medicine in Virginia. Membership is managed through the national ACEP website — when rejoining, be sure to sign up for the Virginia chapter.