SLC Update 6/26/00

[Guest guest]

Morning everyone!

I had a long talk w/Art , Chair of Tx Administrators

(TAC) Friday afternoon & wanted to update all of you as to what's

going on w/the Forum.

1. Pre-Conference Workshop (PCW)-I realize I had told you originally

that we were getting one breakout session during PCW, but that has

now been changed to our own TFC track!! For those of you who haven't

been to the Forum before, Saturday afternoon is a PCW geared to those

who are either new to the world of tx or tx administration. Sessions

typically include " Intro to UNOS " , " ABC's of OPO's " , & " Basics of

Contracting " . Please see the poll on our website re: the planning

for this session & please complete ASAP. One thought I've had for a

session @ PCW is to re-present the TFC Survey Data from San -I

know there are people in this group who've never seen it & we have

the added benefit of the by-laws change now being in effect, instead

of just a proposal.

2. Main Conference-I believe I may have previously said that our

breakout session would not be repeated; that has also changed. Our

breakout session will repeat Monday afternoon w/the others in

Concurrent Session B. I'm still attempting to get some further

details re: the subject matter for the " Medicare Best Practice "

sessions-from what I've read so far, I don't believe either of these

sessions will focus on the issues we've identified as wanting to have

covered by an outside Medicare expert. If that remains the case, I

would favor putting the Medicare expert in this session.

3. Fundraising-As you may (or may not) know, through a lot of hard

work on the part of Art, TAC, & especially Bill Van Vleck, they have

been able to keep the Forum pretty self-sustaining between

registration fees & grants from some of the drug companies. This is

no easy task as the conference gets more & more expensive every

year. In the next couple of weeks, TAC is going to begin an

agressive fundraising campaign of it's own for next year's Forum &

there is concern that their efforts will clash w/our's & we'll all

wind up losing. Art proposed that we let TAC handle the fundraising

in exchange for the expenses for " our " speakers (airfare, hotel, per

diem, speaker's fee) being assumed by TAC & the Forum. Right now,

w/things somewhat up in the air from a legal standpoint w/the

Association, we're not really in a position to be seriously

soliciting $$ from anyone as we have no place to put it, if nothing

else! What do you all think about this? There had been talk about

using UNOS' " umbrella " to make things easier from a legal & financial

standpoint, which this would definately do. I know this won't

provide seed $$ for the Association, but I would also hate to see us

lose the opportunity to raise some $$ for speakers for SLC,

especially when it looks like we'll be needing more than 1-2! If

everyone's in favor of going this route, I would ask those people who

have been speaking w/drug reps to forward those names to Art

so he can make sure ltrs get sent out. Art-you will make sure the

ltrs indicate that funds are for speakers, etc., for both groups,

correct?

4. Association Steering Committee-We do need to settle this. Last

week, Chaney had sent an e-mail w/a list of tentative reps

from each region for the steering committee; in fact, we had several

potential reps from a couple of regions. My suggestion would be for

those who are in a region w/multiple potential reps, please talk

amongst yourself & decide who gets the nod, & this will then be our

steering committee. (If we can't find a TFC in region 6, who wants

to volunteer to move? :-} ) Does everyone still have that list or do

we need to re-send it?

5. UNOS Support for the Association-TAC had actually approached UNOS

re: this very subject for a Tx Administrators Association & it wasn't

well rec'd. There simply isn't $$ or staff available to support

something like this. However, that does not mean that TAC does not

support what we are doing-they do very strongly, which is why we are

getting the seperate PCW & the breakout sessions in the main Forum.

They are willing to help us in anyway they can.

Ok, I guess this is long enough (for now!) Hope to hear from you

all soon.

J. Aguiar

Beth Israel Deaconess, Boston