Hawaii Medical Association Honors Local Physicians and Community Members at Ola Pono Ike Medical Ball
Honolulu, Hawaii, October 18, 2006 — Hawaii Medical Association (HMA), Hawaii’s largest professional physician member organization, will honor local physicians and community members at its Ola Pono Ike Medical Ball, October 21, 2006 at the Hawaii Convention Center. In addition to the inauguration of HMA’s new president, HMA leadership will present the Physician of the Year Award and awards for achievements in medical reporting and legislative advocacy. The event also celebrates HMA’s 150th Anniversary.
Honorees:
2006 HMA Physician of the Year: Thomas S. Kosasa, MD – Medical Director of the Pacific In Vitro Fertilization Institute, and professor and chief of reproductive endocrinology at the University of Hawaii’s John A. Burns School of Medicine. Award recognizes outstanding service to the community by a Hawaii physician.
HMA President’s Award: John S. Smith, MD – Worked to establish both the Tripler Orthopaedic Residency Program and The Queen’s Medical Center –UH Residency Program. Award recognizes outstanding contributions to Hawaii’s medical community.
State Administrator of the Year: J.P. Schmidt, Esq. – Hawaii State Insurance Commissioner. Awarded for exemplary performance in state administration as it relates to health care in Hawaii.
Incoming HMA President: Linda Rasmussen, MD – Orthopaedic surgeon with Windward Orthopedic Group and volunteer surgeon at Shriners Hospital for Children. Will serve as HMA President from October 2006 to October 2007.
2006 HMA Outstanding Legislators: Rep. Dennis Arakaki, House District 30; and Rep. Lynn Finnegan, House District 32. Awarded for advocacy for medical liability reform.
2005 Print Media Reporter: Helen Altonn – Reporter, Honolulu Star-Bulletin. Award recognizes distinguished medical reporting in print.
2005 Broadcast Media Reporter: news reporters at Hawaii Public Radio. Award recognizes distinguished medical reporting in broadcast media.
Ola Pono Ike, which translates as Health is Knowledge, is an annual HMA event held to create awareness of issues in health care while raising funds to support medically related causes. The public is invited to attend. Festivities begin at 5:30pm with a complimentary wine tasting and a silent auction. A portion of the proceeds will benefit Hawaii Medical Foundation. For more information, call (808) 536-7702 or go online to www.hmaonline.net.
About Hawaii Medical Association
Since receiving its charter from King Kamehameha IV in 1856, Hawaii Medical Association has been dedicated to serving physicians, their patients and the community through representation, advocacy and public service. HMA is the Hawaii State affiliate of the American Medical Association as well as the umbrella organization for Hawaii’s five county medical societies.
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Hawaii Doctors and the Hawaii Medical Association Score a Huge Win in the Supreme Court of Hawaii
Honolulu, HI, September 15, 2006—On September 8, 2006, the Supreme Court of the State of Hawaii issued a groundbreaking decision in the actions entitled Hawaii Medical Association vs. Hawaii Medical Services Association, Inc. and Cooper et al. vs. Hawaii Medical Services Association, Inc.
In its opinion, the Supreme Court reversed the First Circuit Court of Hawai'i's 2003 decision that granted HMSA's request to dismiss the claims filed by the Hawaii Medical Association (HMA) and a statewide class of physicians.
The Supreme Court ruled in favor of HMA and the physicians on the following issues, among others:
• HMA has standing to bring claims on its members' behalf and on its own behalf;
• HMA and the physicians could proceed with their claims in court, as opposed to individual arbitrations; and
• The plaintiffs had properly stated claims for unfair methods of competition and tortuous interference with prospective economic advantage.
The claims in both actions stem from the alleged wrongful practices of Hawaii Medical Services Association (HMSA) in their payment of claims by physicians who provide medical services to HMSA's health plan enrollees.
Physicians across the state of Hawaii hail the decision as an important victory in the battle against the wrongful payment practices of health insurance companies.
HMA, along with Drs. Maxwell Copper and Michon Morita, filed the lawsuits in 2002, alleging that HMSA had breached its contracts with the physicians and had engaged in unlawful business practices under the Hawai'i unfair and deceptive trade practices statute. These practices include, among other things: arbitrarily overruling physicians' “medical necessity” determinations, failing to pay physicians in a timely fashion, and arbitrarily reducing physicians' payments by downcoding.
These and other practices, identified in the lawsuits, have impacted both physicians and patients as HMSA has attempted to limit physicians' abilities to make “medical necessity” determinations and has drastically reduced payment to physicians, forcing the physicians to absorb costs or patients to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars of their own money to receive a particular treatment or service.
HMA and Drs. Cooper and Morita are represented by Whatley Drake & Kallas LLC, Price Okamoto Himeno & Lum; and Robert Miller. Whatley Drake is a litigation law firm established in 1998 with offices in Alabama and New York. The firm is involved in complex litigation against some of the largest insurance and managed care companies in the world.
HMSA, established in 1938, is Hawaii's largest health insurer, covering approximately 700,000 people statewide.
Hawaii Medical Association, which received its charter from King Kamehameha IV in 1856, is the Hawaii State affiliate of the American Medical Association as well as the umbrella organization for Hawaii's five county medical societies.
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