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Health care reform
" It looked very much like there was going to be national health
care reform, which was going to look very much like managed care, "
Permut said. " By then, managed care already had developed a bad
reputation. So they were talking about 'mangled care.' So the whole
health care industry was very concerned about what federalized or
nationalized medicine was going to be like.
" I actually put together a task force in Delaware representing all
the counties and a broad range of specialties to develop a health care
reform plan for the state. "
Interestingly, Permut said, the Delaware Hospital Association
hired an outside consultant to help with the process.
" I said there is no sense for both organizations to go down their
own path, " Permut said. " So we brought in the hospital association
and their consultants, and once we got talking, the hospital association
felt that it was better working with us than it was with their
consultant to develop something that could really work within the
state of Delaware. "
So if Hillarycare, or Clintoncare as it became known, had ever
passed, the state of Delaware was " going to be way ahead of the
curve, " Permut said.
Because of the way Hillary conducted her health care reform
task force, " cloaked in secrecy and riddled with bureaucracy, and
so, it never got to pass, " Permut said. " I'm not sure it ever got onto
the floor of Congress. It never came to fruition. But the state of
Delaware was ready to go if it did pass. It was really exciting. The
AMA was prepared for it as well. "
When Permut finished his presidency at the medical society
of Delaware, he became one of Delaware's representatives to the
American Medical Association's House of Delegates. He ended up
on the AMA council of legislation, eventually on the AMA board
from 2010-2018 and became board chairman in 2017.
Role of president
Permut learned a lot from his past presidencies and board involvement.
Ultimately, why did he take on the role of PCMS president?
About six years ago, the mid-2010s, Permut served as PCMS
treasurer.
Permut said that Executive Director Mark Austerberry and he
worked together with the Area Health Education Center, or AHEC,
for southeastern Pennsylvania.
" In my relationship with Mark on that board, he asked me if I
wanted to be on the PCMS board, " Permut said. " For a number of
years, I was treasurer of the society, so they asked me to be president. "
10 Philadelphia Medicine : Summer 2021
What are Permut's priorities as president?
" The Philadelphia County Medical Society really stepped up to the
plate in terms of helping the displaced residents of the Hahnemann
University Hospital and played a big role, " Permut said. " We are
hearing familiar drumbeats out of Tower Health. "
Permut wants to be ready to help the medical professionals in
their transitions. Importantly, the society has a broader scope in
terms of locations: where professionals practice compared to where
they might live.
" I think as you look at the practice of medicine in Philadelphia,
it really is a practice in the region of southeastern Pennsylvania, " he
said. " I think there are many physicians in the PCMS who practice
in Philadelphia but live outside of Philadelphia. I think there are a
lot of physicians who may live in Philadelphia but practice in the
surrounding counties.
" What we would like to do would be to take their pulse and see
what organized medicine can offer them, not only within Philadelphia
but in the surrounding counties, and see if there are some efficiencies
of scale, maybe, we can help out some of the other counties, and
share resources, share continuing medical education, and so forth. "
Permut doesn't want to step on anyone's toes in fulfilling membership
directives.
" Not in any way to take over those counties, but to figure out
what the physicians in the region really need, " he said. " We need
to be a resource for those physicians as well. Because they may or
may not belong to the Philadelphia County Medical Society, maybe
they live in Montgomery County and belong to the Montgomery
County Medical Society, but practice in Philadelphia, or vice versa.
We want to see what those physicians really need. "
Looking for collaboration
The College of Physicians of Philadelphia is another resource
where Permut is looking for collaboration he said.
Permut is on the board and on the executive committee for the
board of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia.
" A big part of the College of Physicians is the Mutter Museum,
but there is also a fellowship, and it is in fact, the oldest medical
society in the U.S., " he said. " That's another resource where maybe
we could collaborate with the college and see how we can improve
the practices of physicians in Philadelphia. "
Permut said he wants the PCMS to conduct a broad-based survey
of its membership.
" One of the problems is that people tend to get surveyed to death, "
he said. " So I think we have to design something that would be very
user-friendly and would not take very long. We may need to do it
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