Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, A voice for private physicians since 1943.

Thrive, Not Just Survive XXII JUNE 5, 2015 RALEIGH AGENDA & SPEAKER BIOS
1:00pm 1:05pm

Welcome & Introductions

1:05pm 1:35pm
Cash and out-of-network: good for medicine as free
agency is for sports.

Andrew Schlafly, J.D., General Counsel, AAPS

Andy Schlafly has been the General Counsel of AAPS for

nearly two decades, leading the legal effort to preserve
private medicine. He has argued numerous cases in trial
and appellate courts. In 2014 Andy helped win an
historic precedent against sham peer review in an
important case before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Second Circuit, establishing the full right of a victimized
physician to obtain discovery in litigation against
hospital administrators and he helped extend a unique
federal injunction against administrators at another
hospital to prevent them from reporting a sham peer
review to the National Practitioner Data Bank. Andy won
two jury trials for an AAPS member against Aetna in
2014. He also guided AAPS to file an amicus brief that
helped achieve a grant of cert by the U.S. Supreme Court
to review ObamaCare a second time, in King v. Burwell.
His college degree was in engineering, and his law
degree is from Harvard, where he was an editor of the
Harvard Law Review.

1:35pm 2:05pm
Opting Out of Medicare.
Lawrence R. Huntoon, M.D., Ph.D., F.A.A.N.

Dr. Huntoon is editor-in-chief of the Journal of American

Physicians and Surgeons. He is also a past president of
the AAPS, serves on the AAPS board of directors and is
chairman of the AAPS Committee to Combat Sham Peer
Review. He is an unrepentant lampoonist, whose
subjects have included Medicare bureaucrats, otherwise
known as the Blue Bunglers, managed care moguls, and
others who are intent on demeaning, devaluing,
attacking, and oppressing those who practice medicine.
In addition to his collection of managed care cartoons,
known as Huntoon Lampoons, his creations have
included the WEDONT CARE HMO Card, and his
collection of correspondence with HCFA and Medicare
bureaucrats, known as Little Frank, which now stands
over ten feet tall and weighs well over 200 pounds.
Trained as a medical research scientist with a Ph.D. in
neurophysiology, Dr. Huntoon is a practicing solo
neurologist who is opted out of Medicare and runs a
third party-free practice in the Buffalo area.

2:05pm 2:25pm

Q & A for Panel One

2:25pm 2:40pm

BREAK

2:40pm 4:25pm
Case Studies in Direct Pay Primary Care
2:40pm 3:00pm
Brian Forrest, M.D.
Access Healthcare Direct, Apex, NC
www.AccessHealthcareDirect.com

Dr. Forrest is CEO and Founder of the Access

Healthcare Direct national network of direct care
practices. In 2002, he opened Access Healthcare P.A. ,
the first Direct Primary Care Family Medicine
Micropractice in the country. He helped organize the
first and second Direct Primary Care National Summit
as CME Director for the Family Medicine Education
Consortium and is now helping plan the third DPC
Summit. He has helped physicians around the country
to transition to new models and is currently helping
physicians open direct care and hybrid practices in 20+
states. He has consulted for integrated health systems
and several health care industry companies about how
to engage the DPC model. He teaches a class for the
UNC Chapel Hill School of Medicine called New Models
of Care and also Disruptive Innovation in Health
Care Practicum for the NCSU Poole College of
Management MBA program and has developed a Direct
Primary Care Residency Curriculum for the UNC
Department of Family Medicine. He has been a
featured/keynote speaker at many national
conferences including at 12 Gurus, a TED type
presentation on innovations in health care that was
presented live on Broadway. He has been featured on
the cover of several publications including Medical
Economics and the Weekly Standard Magazine for his
practice innovation and has also appeared in the Wall
Street Journal, Forbes, and Kiplingers. He is the current
President of the DPCMH Association (DPCMH.org). He
leads the DPC Workgroup of the Commission on Quality
and Practice Enhancement for the AAFP and is Chair of
their DPC Interest Group. In his non-professional time,
Dr. Forrest enjoys his family and rescued Chocolate
Labrador, composing music, organizing free clinics for
his church, placing Bibles as a Gideon, having fun as an
amateur magician, and teaching martial arts.

3:00pm 3:20pm
Josh Umbehr, M.D.
Atlas MD, Family Practice, Wichita, KS,
www.Atlas.md

Dr. Umbehr majored in human nutritional sciences at

Kansas State University, where he did research on the
effects of vitamin A on lung cancer. He received his
M.D. from the University of Kansas School of Medicine
and completed his family medicine residency at Wesley
Medical Center. After becoming a board-certified family
physician, he opened AtlasMD, a practice he had been
dreaming of for nearly a decade. In this practice, he is
able to shrug off the burdens and restrictions of
government and insurance regulation to focus solely on
patients and their needs. His oldest child, Katelyn, has
Down syndrome, and supporting the Down Syndrome
Society of Wichita is a key focus of AtlasMD.

3:20pm 3:40pm
David Albenberg, M.D.
Access Healthcare LLC, Charleston, SC
www.LetsSimplify.com/

Having received his B.A. from Tufts University in Boston

and his M.D. from Temple University in Philadelphia,
Dr. Albenberg continued his southerly descent to
Charleston in 1994 to pursue a specialty in Family
Medicine. Since residency he has been in private
practice, focusing on disease prevention and wellness
maintenance. Considering himself a premature casualty
of a broken system, he retreated from a high volume
practice in December, 2002. Out of both hope and
desperation, he envisioned and founded Access
Healthcare, LLC, South Carolina's first Retail Medicine
primary care practice in 2003. He has been Board
Certified in Family Medicine since 1997.

3:40pm 4:25pm Q & A for Panel Two

4:25pm 4:40pm

BREAK

4:40pm 6:00pm
Opting Out in a Surgical Practice Setting
Paul Gorman, M.D., Trinity Hand Specialists
Johnson City, TN, http://www.TrinityHand.com

Dr. Gorman started Trinity Hand Specialists in 2005

after 15 years as the hand surgeon for a large
orthopaedic group in Johnson City, Tennessee. He has
established the regions first and only free-standing
hand surgical and therapy office. Dr. Gorman is a
board-certified, fellowship-trained, orthopaedic hand
surgeon with an additional board certificate of added
qualification (CAQ) in hand surgery. He is a member of
the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons
(AAPS) and the American Society for Surgery of the
Hand (ASSH), and is a past president of the Washington
County Medical and Tennessee Hand Societies. He
limits his practice to the evaluation and treatment of
injuries and diseases of the hand and wrist and has a
particular interest in occupational problems.

Dan Pohlgheers, MBA, Sunesis Medical Consulting

Johnson City, TN, http://SunesisMedical.com

Dan Pohlgeers received his B.S. in Occupational

Therapy (OT) from Eastern Kentucky University in 1990.
He became a Certified Hand Therapist (CHT) in 2000.
After 15 years of clinical and supervisory experience,
Dan completed his Masters of Business Administration
(MBA) from Milligan College in 2006. While completing
his MBA, he became the administrator of Trinity Hand
Specialists, PLLC a free standing orthopedic surgical and
therapy practice in Johnson City, TN. In 2009 he was
appointed to the Tennessee Workers Compensation
Advisory Council spending time as a non-voting and
voting member. Building on his experience with
workers compensation, governmental affairs, and in
opting out of Medicare, Dan branched into a part time
consulting business and founded Sunesis Medical in
2011. In 2015, this part-time venture parlayed into a
full-time commitment with Sunesis Medical now
assisting medical practices in a variety of administrative
tasks in multiple states.

5:45pm 6:00pm Q & A for Panel Three

------------------------------------------------Part II:

POLITICS and YOUR PRACTICE 2015

RECEPTION, DINNER, & BRIEFING
6:00pm 6:30pm Reception
6:30pm 6:40pm
AAPS Initiatives to Protect Private Medicine.
Jane Orient, M.D., Executive Director, AAPS

Jane M. Orient obtained her undergraduate degrees in

chemistry and mathematics from the University of
Arizona in Tucson, and her M.D. from Columbia
University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1974.
She completed an internal medicine residency at
Parkland Memorial Hospital and University of Arizona
Affiliated Hospitals and then became an Instructor at
the University of Arizona College of Medicine. She has
been in solo private practice since 1981 and has served
as Executive Director of the Association of American
Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) since 1989. She is the
author of YOUR Doctor Is Not In: Healthy Skepticism
about National Healthcare, Sutton's Law (a novel about
where the money is in medicine today), and the second
through fourth editions of Sapira's Art and Science of
Bedside Diagnosis. She is the editor of AAPS News and
is the managing editor of the Journal of American
Physicians and Surgeons.

6:40pm 7:00pm
Legislation Impacting Independent Physicians and
Their Patients and the 114th Congress. Charles Sauer

Charles Sauer, founder of the Market Institute, is the

AAPS boots-on-the-ground around Capitol Hill. Hes an
economist and policy specialist. On The Hill he is known
for developing free market solutions and effective
legislative coalitions. He has worked for a Governor, a
Senator, represented an academic think tank and is a
co-founder and Executive Director of the Free Market
Medical Association. Charlie has been published in
many mainstream media outlets in addition to writing
congressional testimony and speeches for politicians,
business owners, and academics. Last but certainly not
least, you can catch Charlie every other Monday on the
OneAmerica TV network talking with Graham Ledger on
The Daily Ledger.

7:00pm 7:30pm DINNER SERVED

7:30pm 7:50pm
The Physicians Declaration of Independence in 2015.
Richard Amerling, M.D., AAPS President, Associate
Clinical Professor of Medicine, Icahn School of
Medicine at Mount Sinai, Attending Nephrologist,
Mount Sinai Beth Israel Hospital, New York

Dr. Amerling earned his medical degree at Catholic

University of Louvain in Brussels, Belgium. He
completed his internship and residency at New York
Hospital, Queens in Flushing, N.Y. He pursued a
Nephrology Fellowship at New York Hospital, Queens,
and at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in
Philadelphia. Dr. Amerling is board certified by the
American Board of Internal Medicine for Internal
Medicine and Nephrology. He is a member of the
American Society of Nephrology, and is President of
the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.
Dr. Amerling is an invited presenter at numerous
medical conferences, both nationally and
internationally. As author or co-author, Dr. Amerlings
work has been published as chapters in textbooks and
also in peer-reviewed medical journals, including the
Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.

7:50pm 8:10pm
Physician-led efforts to review and update a state's
medical practice act & stop MOC/MOL.
Steve Herring, M.D., D.D. S.

A native of North Carolina, Dr. Herring has been in

private practice since 1990 and during that time has
treated over 14,000 patients in most areas of the
specialty of plastic and reconstructive surgery. Dr.
Herring graduated from Woodward Academy at College
Park Georgia in 1972, and then from the University of
North Carolina undergraduate school in 1976. Dr.
Herring then earned his Doctor of Dental Surgery
degree at UNC Chapel Hill in 1979. After approximately
two years in private dental practice, he attended
medical school and graduated from the Bowman Gray
School of Medicine at Wake Forest University in 1984.
He completed both his General Surgery Residency and
Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery fellowship at Wake
Forest University Baptist Medical Center in 1989. Dr.
Herring holds Board Certification in Dentistry and
Plastic Surgery and is an active staff member at Cape
Fear Valley Health System. He is a Medical Director of
the Advanced Cardiac Life Support educational program
at Cape Fear Valley Health System. A proponent of
patient advocacy and patient safety, Dr. Herring has
been involved with medical organizations dedicated to
protecting patients and improving the quality of their
health care. He is the Past President of the North
Carolina Medical Political Action Committee, Past
President of the Cumberland County Medical Society,
Past President of the North Carolina Medical Board,
Past Board Member of the North Carolina Medical
Society, and Past Member of the Federation of State
Medical Boards.

8:10pm 8:40pm
Wrap-Up and More Updates on AAPS Legal Actions
Protecting Independent Physicians

Andrew Schlafly, J.D., General Counsel, AAPS

(see bio on first page)

8:40pm: ADJOURN/NC CHAPTER MEETING

(NC physicians please stay in the room for a brief chapter discussion)
THANK YOU FOR PARTICIPATING.

BE SURE TO TURN IN YOUR EVALUATION SHEET TO OBTAIN YOUR CME CERTIFICATE.

Plan NOW to Attend the AAPS 72nd Annual Meeting:
October 1-3, 2015: St. Louis, MO