A bill mandating reimbursement for office based surgery facility fees passed the Senate in 2011. We believe that it will be passed this year and signed into law. More…
We have recently incorporated The Society of New York Office Based Surgery Facilities as a not for profit 501(c)(6) corporation to advocate for accredited office based surgery facilities in New York State.
We believe that office based surgery is the preferred place to perform many surgical and endoscopic procedures, in terms of cost, convenience and safety. All members of the society are accredited by one of three approved organizations and have satisfied the highest standards which have allowed the accreditation.
NYOBS will seek to ensure that the importance of office based surgery is universally recognized. To that end, our first goal will be to ensure that all accredited office based surgery facilities are recognized by governmental and institutional entities as equivalent to other venues where similar surgeries are performed.
We believe that all accredited ambulatory surgery facilities should be compensated by patients and insurance companies in a fair manner. There have been many attempts to circumvent usual, customary, and reasonable fees for office based surgery. To date we have been successful in many cases in our efforts to obtain fair reimbursement for our facilities.
We anticipate that with the backing of the almost 1000 office based surgery facilities in New York State with help from the medical societies, our organization will be successful in reaching the goals which we have set:
- Fair reimbursement of all accredited OBS facilities based on standard accurate UCR fees.
- Direct payment to all accredited OBS facilities by all insurance companies.
- Recognition of OBS facilities by governmental programs.
- Recognition of OBS facilities as being separate from a physician’s office.
OBS facilities must recognize that if they are to accomplish these goals, there must be strong representation both in Albany as well as in Washington. As a result we have hired a lobbyist, Bogdan, Lasky & Kopley to represent us in Albany. We are both optimistic that with their help, we will be able to achieve our goals.
We hope that you will join us by filling out our application along with your payment of the first years’ dues of $1,000. (Please see the application for individuals who are not affiliated with an accredited facility.)
We are working to create pilot reimbursement programs for obs facilities. The sooner you join, the more likely you are to be included, so please join ASAP.
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We need your help, not only to raise funds to support our cause, but demonstrate that accredited office based surgery facilities will join an organization to represent us and allow recognition of our worth. We have made significant progress in our goal of obtaining recognition of office based surgery on both the state as well as national level, but we need to show the legislators that we have the backing of office based surgery facilities throughout New York State. We now have 150 members, representing 190 member facilities, but in order to accomplish what we wish, we need to significantly increase our membership now so that we have 25% of the office based facilities in New York, which would be a total of about 250 facilities.
The AAAASF has sent a letter to the OBS facilities which it has accredited informing them of our organization. You may download a copy. We have also been featured in the MSSNY weekly email. Scroll down almost to the bottom of the page in the archives on the MSSNY website. The Queens County Medical Society has also mentioned us in their newsletter.
As a result of our efforts, the Senate passed our Bill in 2011 (enter S4597A into the search box to see the bill), but there was not enough time to pass it in the Assembly. This bill is regarding reimbursement for OBS facilities. We intend to keep pressing so that we can get passed through both houses this year and signed into law by the Governor. You may also download a copy of the bill and the memorandum of support which NYOBS has written in support of this bill.
We also will continue to work with the regulators in Albany as well as the insurance companies. Some insurance companies are reimbursing for the costs of office based surgery. For more information about that, please go to the insurance page
We welcome any suggestions which you may have regarding the development of our programs as we grow.
We now have a Political Action Committee (PAC), NYOBSPAC. It is critically important for us to support those politicians who share our views, especially now that a bill has been introduced. You can make a contribution to our PAC, which will be used in turn to make contributions to political candidates. Please send your check to:
NYOBS-PAC
c/o Bogdan, Lasky & Kopley
111 Washington Avenue
Suite 750
Albany, New York 12210
You may also pay by credit card.
For more information, you may contact our Executive Director, George Dunkel.
George Dunkel
Executive Director
NYOBS
408 Kenwood Avenue 2nd Floor
Delmar, NY 12054
518-439-4103
Fax 518-439-0769
We hope to hear from you soon.