Industry Portal

Welcome to the Industry Portal Page. This page is designed to give our industry supporters all the information that they need to know about FMDA in one convenient location. It is updated regularly. If you have any questions or constructive comments, please e-mail them to Ian Cordes, executive director, at ian.cordes@fmda.org.

Overview

Florida Medical Directors Association is the state chapter of the American Medical Directors Association. It is also a “Specialty Society” of the Florida Medical Association. The mission of FMDA is to promote the highest quality care in the post-acute care continuum by providing leadership, professional education, and advocacy.

As of October 2009, membership was about 325. Most of our members are medical directors and attending physicians of Florida’s skilled nursing facilities or nursing homes. The IMS Data tracking system does not track the prescribing activities of these physicians as accurately as it does through retail pharmacies. Many of our members are “flat liners” on the IMS system, even though they may have hundreds of nursing home patients taking on average, 8 medicines at any one time. Financially FMDA is probably one of the more successful AMDA state chapters. We are in Florida (that helps) but also we have been able to anticipate change and plan accordingly.

According to Florida's Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA), there are approximately 667 licensed skilled nursing facilities in Florida with a total number of 82,510 beds. With an average occupancy statewide of 90% or 74,259 patients and an average of 8 daily medications each, Florida is providing 594,072 prescriptions per day, or an average of 44,709,264,648 per year (or 44.71 billion). And that is just in nursing homes. There are also 2,852 licensed assisted living facilities (ALFs) with 81,008 residents. Plus there are 41 free standing hospices and nearly 2,500 licensed home health care agencies.

Organization

Hugh W. Thomas, DO, FAAFP, CMD of Casselberry, Florida is the president. The chairman of the board is Carl Suchar, DO, CMD of Clearwater, Florida. The directors are all elected. There are two ex-officio members: 1. A nurse practitioner/physician assistant representative; and 2. The chairman of the Industry Advisory Board.

FMDA is managed by Corecare Associates, Inc. of West Palm Beach. The owner of Corecare, Ian Cordes, serves as executive director of FMDA. Corecare also provides association management services to the Florida Health Social Workers Association and Florida Association Directors of Nursing Administration (FADONA). Corecare also provides a host of marketing, public relations and publishing services.

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Carl Suchar, DO, CMD	Hugh W. Thomas, DO, FAAFP, CMD

Meetings

Town Hall Meetings

FMDA Town Meetings are held around the state several times a year. To date, we have visited Jacksonville, West Palm Beach, Miami, Sarasota, St. Petersburg, Tampa, Orlando and Pensacola. In 2008 we had one in Fort Myers and one in Fort Lauderdale. There is usually a Board of Directors meeting during the day and a pharma-supported dinner that evening with the local long-term care provider community invited. Attendance is usually between 30 and 60.

On Jan. 30, 2009, we hosted our first Town Meeting of the year in Tallahassee. The Town Meeting Dinner was sponsored by Abbott Laboratories held in Pensacola for the very first time. In June, we held another Town Meeting in Lake Worth
and the dinner was sponsored by Boehringer Ingelheim.

The Town Meeting dinner was sponsored by Abbott Laboratories along with meeting co-sponsor American Health Associates, an independent laboratory servicing private physician's offices as well as nursing facilities.
The next Town Meeting is scheduled for Feb. 19 in Daytona Beach Shores. 

For more information, contact Matt Reese at the business office.

Industry can support us by sponsoring the Town Meeting Dinners.

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Annual Meeting

The main meeting of FMDA is the annual meeting, which is held on the third weekend of October in Orlando. Paid registration in 2009 was 333. The first meeting was in 1990. In 1997 we added a nurse practitioner/physician’s assistant (NP/PA) to the Board of Directors and we have had an increasing number of NP/PA attendees (75 in 2008).

In 2000, Florida Chapter of the American Society of Consultant Pharmacists (CPs) agreed to join the meeting and since then we have had an increasing number of CPs attend the meeting (90 in 2006).

2006 was an important year for FMDA in that we rebranded the meeting as the “Best Care Practices in the Geriatrics Continuum” conference. It now has its own website at www.bestcarepractices.com. It was in 2006 that we also invited the Florida Geriatrics Society and American Academy of Home Care Physicians to participate on a 3-year trial basis.

In 2008, we invited the American College of Health Care Administrators to participate on a trial basis and now we look forward to their support and for years to come.

In 2009, the American Association for Long Term Care Nursing joined our conference for a 2-year trial basis.

Attendance numbers for the last 5 years have been:

* The attendee numbers in 2006 are higher for two reasons: 1. We hosted a 3-hour stand-alone “Basic Training” program for new health practitioners and those new to long-term care, and 2. We offered all three mandatory licensure update courses for health care licensees. In both cases, attendees were able to register to attend these sessions individually. This may have added up to 65 registrants – some who did not attend the entire conference.

Sponsorship opportunities for the Best Care Practices conferences are posted on the website about six months before the meeting.

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Publications

Website

FMDA owns and manages two websites:

1. www.fmda.org  is our main association website and it includes a password-protected members-only section, and

2. Website traffic for the annual conference is directed to www.bestcarepractices.org.  Both are supported by industry on an annual basis.

FMDA’s “NewsClips” is a regular e-mail news service for local, state, and national health care news with an emphasis on long-term care, geriatrics, and skilled nursing care. FMDA sends its members real-time news clips straight from the actual news sources. This allows them to stay on top of legislation, regulations, and reimbursement issues, as well as industry trends. They are sent out two to three times a week and the member services is supported by industry on an annual basis.

Newsletter – Progress Reports

We have an award-winning newsletter, Progress Report, which is published 2-4 times per year. A printed copy is sent to all members and other interested parties, and it has a total circulation of 1100. It is also posted on our web site  and can be downloaded in PDF file format. In 2006, FMDA started accepting paid advertising.

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Industry Advisory Board

The IAB was established in 1999 as a way for the Florida Medical Directors Association and other interested organizations to enhance lines of communication and to work together to become part of the process to develop solutions for our common problems. Members have provided valuable input into planning the annual program and trade show and in supporting FMDA in other areas of mutual interest.

The IAB meets once a year at the Tampa Airport Marriott and is by invitation only. There are no fees to be a member of the IAB, there are no solicitations made at the meeting, and no promises are made to the members.

Members of the IAB are also likely to be contacted during the year for informal advice and their opinions.

 

FMDA President Hugh Thomas, DO, CMD, (right) presents Founding IAB Chairman Malcolm Fraser, MD, CMD, with an award to honor the 10th Anniversary of the Industry Advisory Board.

Membership is on an annual basis and is limited to a select few pharma and non-pharma companies. We try to invite a variety of companies – some well-established in LTC, some small and some new to LTC. For example, in 2006, we invited a company that had just exited the LTC market because we wanted to better understand why they made that decision.

Attendees include the physician leadership of FMDA and we also invite special guests. In 2007, we invited a representative of FL-ASCP, a physician from Orlando who was starting a
foundation to support NP training, and the head of LTC for one of the large Medicare Part D plans. Meetings typically last no more than four hours.

As a token of recognition, they also receive the following benefits:

• Advance notice of all sponsorship opportunities
• Invitation to a private reception at the annual meeting which is attended by FMDA leadership
• Special recognition at the annual meeting

The IAB is headed by a chairman and co-chairman. The founding chairman is Malcolm Fraser, MD, CMD, of St. Petersburg. The co-chair for 2007 was David Reis of Boehringer Ingelheim, for 2008 it was Al Henry of Watson Pharma, Wayne Morrow with Novartis for 2009 and John Maddox, Corporate Director – LTC, Astellas Pharma is the co-chair for 2010.

2009 Industry Advisory Board IAB Chairman Dr. Malcolm Fraser (center) and Co-chair Wayne Morrow with Novartis, with participants (from left) Greg Fort with Sanofi-Aventis; Dr. Dennis Stone, Chief Medical Officer for Signature Health Care; and IAB former Co-chair Al Henry with Watson Pharma; at FMDA’s 9th Annual 2009 Industry Advisory Board meeting in Tampa.

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Regional Dinner Meetings

These are held around the state and each “series” is usually funded by one company.

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Sponsorship Opportunities

There are numerous sponsorship opportunities some of which are listed below. Many organizations “Beta test” new ideas with FMDA before going nationwide. If it works in Florida, it will work nationwide.

Here is a partial listing:

• Best Care Practices Meeting: see list at www.bestcarepractices.org
• FMDA NewClips
• Newsletter
• Regional Dinner Meetings
• Town Hall Meeting
• Web site

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Feedback
We welcome your feedback. If you have any comments, please click on this link and send an email.
It will be personally answered by Dr Fraser.