S D C M S L eadership
Godspeed, Fair Winds, and Following Seas by Tom Gehring, Executive Director & CEO, SDCMS
❦ December 31 will be my last day at SDCMS. After more than 14 years as your CEO, I have chosen to retire at the top of my game. Following a welcome sabbatical, I intend to look for new, different opportunities to contribute. It has been a privilege to make a difference in the lives of San Diego physicians and the patients whom they serve. My mother taught her boys to always leave things better than when we found them, and I am proud of what we’ve improved at SDCMS since my first day on September 17, 2001. • We have a compelling, unifying vision that we — as staff, as leadership, and as San Diego doctors — constantly strive for: “Physicians United for a Healthy San Diego.” It is about doctors, it is about being united, and it is ultimately about the patients — a healthy San Diego. • In a time of shrinking organizational allegiance, we’ve increased membership from 1,900+ active members in 2001 to almost 2,900 in 2015. We have joined all of UCSD’s medical students and nearly all of San Diego’s approximately 1,200 residents and fellows. • We’ve grown inclusively, across all modes of practice, all systems, and all ages. In 2013, the next seven likely presidents would hail from Scripps Clinic, from the Permanente Medical Group, from an independent solo practice, from Sharp Rees-Stealy, from UCSD, from a medium-sized practice, and from a Federally Qualified Health Center.
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november 2015
• We’ve created so many critical legislative victories: ♦♦ In our finest hour, we held the line on medical malpractice rates — preserving MICRA — and turned Prop. 46 from a sure thing to a dead duck. It lost in San Diego 72–28%. ♦♦ We positively addressed many, many real-world medical issues in the legislature, from eliminating loopholes in immunizations to temporary, if not yet permanent improvements in Medi-Cal payments and access. ♦♦ After a decade of struggle, we eliminated the absurd Geographic Practice Cost Index (GPCI) inequity — returning the almost unbelievable amount of $12,000+ on average to every doctor in the county. ♦♦ We contributed to eliminating the (un)Sustainable (non)Growth Rate (SGR) formula. ♦♦ We preserved the physician as the head of the care team by stopping dangerous scope of practice incursions. • We have a local, state, and national reputation for organizational excellence and innovation. Just this year, every SDCMS member in San Diego will be able to access, on their cell phone, the database of all San Diego physicians to recruit, retain, and refer (R3) from that eponymous mobile application. • Despite the vagaries of the stock market, we are financially healthy. In 2005, we sold the building near the top of the market and eliminated the
huge organizational risk of owning a crumbling building. • We are the convener of choice on healthcare — an agnostic spokesperson for all docs. When Ebola threatened, it was SDCMS who gathered the community. In 2001, when anthrax and bioterrorism terrified, it was SDCMS who promulgated, in record time, a primer on bioterrorism to help the average physician — used far beyond San Diego. • We created the SDCMS Foundation, which has facilitated more than $10 million of pro bono care by San Diego doctors. • We are supremely relevant in the community; we have superb relationships with almost all local leaders and stakeholders. Unsurprisingly, as with any self-aware organization, SDCMS has challenges: • Our membership penetration is still too low. We have to grow by organically re-