3 minute read
WHO ARE AVLS MEMBERS?
By Brian Jones, AVLS Membership Manager
As we look back upon the past year, we feel a sense of immense gratification and enthusiasm. Despite the year’s challenges, COVID-19 in particular, our association maintained its sound structure and organization. Our membership, as well as our leadership, is a diverse group. We are proud to be represented by members in more than 40 countries, with professionals of many different races, ethnicities, ages, and gender. Our membership is comprised of a multidisciplinary group of more than 20 medical specialties, including physicians, nurses, sonographers, therapists, and allied health professionals. Even in a year that presented obstacles beyond our control, we persevered by launching many exciting new programs and platforms to benefit our members. AVLS introduced a series of free webinars in April to assist during the COVID-19 pandemic. Topics included best practices for employers, telemedicine, dealing with financial turmoil, marketing strategies, virtual practices, and more. Each webinar hosted an average of more than 100 registrants. AVLS introduced its first virtual reality educational offering in May, Immersive Sclerotherapy: VR 360. Through this course, our members obtained CME credit in the comfort of their own homes. By the end of our fiscal year, we had 25 registrants, from whom we have received overwhelmingly positive feedback. To further engage our members and provide a vital networking outlet, we unveiled the myAVLS Community (MAC). The MAC serves as a messaging board for AVLS members. Through this platform, members have shared ideas, opinions, and insight. This community has increased member engagement while also allowing groups within AVLS, such as committees, task forces, and specialty sections, the opportunity to communicate with each other. AVLS partnered with Vitadox.com to help our members reach new patients for vascular and lymphatic system-related symptoms, conditions, and treatment options. This platform enables members to showcase expertise, highlight medical services, and share success stories while establishing credibility, improving online reputation, attracting new patients, and booking appointments. To build relationships with organizations as well as individuals, AVLS began offering institutions the opportunity to join as an Organizational Member. Through this new category, organizations can have their physicians and allied health staff join as a group at a discounted rate and receive complimentary live and online educational credits. AVLS has already recruited its first Organizational Member, Indiana Vein Specialists, a practice that has provided memberships for ten allied health professionals and two physician members. The AVLS’s PRO Venous Registry now has more than 21,000 patient records, mostly comprised of 8 months of CVR data. Work is currently being done with VCA, which will add several years of data to the Registry. Over the past several months, the Operations committee made significant changes to the Registry by implementing a Conservative Therapy table, which will capture compression data from all providers. We made additional modifications, including the newly revised CEAP scoring, a more comprehensive list of vein anatomy,
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anticoagulation therapies, and treatment zones for Pelvic Venous Embolization. As a professional society devoted to clinical care of a specific medical condition, the AVLS is unique among medical specialties. Our Advocacy effort focused on serving the professional interests of our members, with an additional emphasis on ensuring patient access to needed care. Our recent Advocacy work includes detailed engagement with carriers, including Medicare Administrative Contractors, to expand patient access to needed care and to ensure that physicians have reimbursement coverage for the latest vein therapeutic interventions. AVLS works to ensure that our members are not denied privileges to care for patients based on their primary board certification, frequently educating payers that high-quality care is not defined by narrow specialty. We are pleased to celebrate the progress of the last year but recognize the challenges of the year ahead. This year’s Annual Congress (Oct. 15-18) will be 100% virtual and will be our first foray onto our web-based platform. Our webinar offerings will be expanded in 2021 to include additional educational topics and member engagement programs. Our virtual offerings will continue beyond Annual Congress with new virtual reality courses and online education courses. Thank you to the AVLS team, leadership, and members for your dedication to this organization and your efforts in advancing our mission.
