AOPA HEADLINES Maynard Carkhuff and Don Shurr, CPO, will join the AOPA Board for three-year terms as at-large director 2 and clinical director, respectively, and Eileen Levis will serve another three-year term on the AOPA Board representing the 1 to 5 location membership segment. Tom DiBello, CO, FAAOP, who served as immediate past president this past year and previously as president for two successive one-year terms, leaves the Board with a legacy of greatly expanded research efforts by AOPA and the Center for O&P Learning, a solid AOPA financial picture, and a plan of work for the Survival Imperatives that tilts AOPA resources toward longer-term research and payer education efforts.
Incoming AOPA President Anita Liberman-Lampear and current President Tom Kirk.
released Dobson DaVanzo final report is a major first effort in the direction of cost-effective research projects. The report shows timely O&P intervention saves—not costs—Medicare because beneficiaries receiving timely treatment
develop fewer costly co-morbity conditions than those beneficiaries who do not receive O&P care. Liberman-Lampear concluded her acceptance remarks at the meeting noting, “My commitment to you
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Tom Kirk and AOPA Past President Tom DiBello.
AOPA’s incoming President Anita Liberman-Lampear paid special tribute to both Tom Kirk and Tom DiBello for their “collaborative effort that gave birth to basically Six Survival Imperatives, which have been the operative road map for your Board and volunteer efforts these last 15 months.” She also described her involvement with Stream 3 of the Survival Imperatives, which focused on developing cost-effective research data measuring the payer and patient benefits when timely O&P intervention occurs and avoids subsequent co-morbidities that can escalate payer costs on the non-O&P-treated patients. Funded by AOPA and commissioned by the Amputee Coalition, the recently
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