To meet this moment, ACEP must fight for systemic reforms that improve access to care and reduce administrative burdens that interfere with the physician-patient relationship. This includes addressing insurer denials, down coding, excessive documentation, workplace violence, and emergency department crowding. The recent RAND report on sustaining emergency care outlines needed policy changes: funding for unfunded mandates, legal and physical protections for our workforce, social support resources, and fairer insurer reimbursement. These are solvable challenges, but they require bold, informed action. I bring deep experience in reimbursement, advocacy, and leadership. I believe ACEP must go on offense: challenging harmful payer behavior, defending physician-led care, and opposing inappropriate expansions of non-physician independent practice. We must also ensure physicians have the tools to sustain their careers and well-being.

ACEP must lead with clarity and urgency. I’m ready to help guide that work—amplifying our members’ voices and fighting to keep our specialty strong.

Kristin B. McCabe-Kline, MD, FACEP

Current Professional Positions: VP/Chief Medical Information Officer, AdventHealth Corporate Growth and Acquisitions and East Florida Division; EMS Medical Director, Flagler County; Medical Director, Flagler Technical College EMT Training Program

Internships and Residency: Emergency Medicine Residency, Advocate Christ Medical Center, Oak Lawn, Ill. (2005)

Medical Degree: MD, University of Texas Medical School, San Antonio, Texas (2002)

Response: I think the two most pressing issues facing our members are a sense of powerlessness and isolation. In the last decade, we have seen many changes in the health care landscape that have resulted in consolidation, employer/contract transitions, altered working conditions, and changes in reimbursement.

Many emergency physicians feel reduced to pieces on a chess board that are moved about without control or autonomy and given the respect of a widget maker or RVU producer. Continuing to provide our members with employer transparency in a forward-facing manner is a key task that we are focused on. Every emergency physician deserves to know what options they have and consider what employer would give them the opportunity to do their best work based on their individual goals. One of the most profound undertakings of ACEP has been the launch of the ED Accreditation Program, which will also help to improve transparency while simultaneously pressing health systems to improve the infrastructure emergency physicians depend upon to provide exceptional care to our patients. In order for emergency medicine to attract the best and the brightest and ensure that emergency medicine–boarded physicians are encouraged to work in all areas of our country, reimbursement will continue to be a strong focus for ACEP with advocacy efforts.