Practice Committee

Introduction

Welcome to the APSA Practice Committee webpage in PedSurgResouce, a section of the Pediatric Surgery NaT.

Our goal here is to provide tools to aid the practicing pediatric surgeon. These include:

  • education on current coding/reimbursement issues and policies,
  • supplemental information on current practice patterns and standards, and
  • materials to support negotiations with partners, managers, and hospital administration

Mission

The APSA Practice Committee exists to monitor the practice of pediatric surgery in North America, report trends in practice patterns and offer guidance to APSA members for improvements and optimization of care delivery.

This committee will analyze various trends in the organization and delivery of pediatric surgical care, as well as changes in private/government reimbursement methodologies and other financial factors which influence the viability of pediatric surgical practices, in order to ensure the successful long term delivery of high-quality surgical care to our patients.

In order to accomplish this, the APSA Practice Committee will

  • Work to assure adequate representation and participation of APSA on national committees regarding reimbursement issues, including the RUC (Resource Based-Relative Value Scale Update Committee) and the CPT Advisory Committee
  • Offer education and assistance to the membership about issues involving billing, coding, office/practice management and hospital contracting
  • Encourage integration of varied pediatric surgery practice models into APSA, including academic, traditional “private practice,” hospital-employed, multispecialty group practice, armed forces, locum tenens, and others
  • Work with the APSA Workforce Committee to analyze the supply and demand of pediatric surgeons and the impact they may have on care
  • Develop practice documents, including management guidelines, which may enable members to interact more successfully with patients, families, colleagues, and payers through the use of standardized preoperative workups and indications for surgery

APSA Committee Page

Resources

Billing/Coding

Publications

E-Learning

References

  1. Rothstein DH, Raval MV. Operating room efficiency. Semin Pediatr Surg. 2018;27(2):79-85.  [PMID:29548356]
  2. Stolar CJ, Alapan AA, Torres SA. University pediatric surgery: benchmarking performance. J Pediatr Surg. 2010;45(1):28-36; discussion 36-7.  [PMID:20105576]
Last updated: December 14, 2022