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Your Daily Posterous Spaces Update October 8th, 2011 Jane Snyder -

RIP <http://ptmanagerblog.com/jane-snyder-rip>

Posted about 22 hours ago by [image: _portrait_thumb] Kovacek,

PT, DPT, MSA <http://posterous.com/people/1l1oCkDWEWjv> to

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PTManagers

The PT world has lost a great leader and good friend.

Jane is a great example of leadership and vision for Physical Therapists.

Jane, You will be missed.

You really made a difference.

********************************************************************************\

*****************

Snyder, Lincoln leader, dies at 66

By WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

Posted: 10/06/2011 10:26 AM

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LINCOLN - She knew she wouldn't survive to see the opening of Lincoln's new

arena, but former Lincoln City Councilwoman Jayne Snyder said she could

almost hear the crowd cheering as she envisioned that day.

A Rolling Stones concert, she thought, would be the perfect first show for

the new facility, slated to open in September 2013.

" I'm probably showing my age with that, " she joked in an interview last

month on Lincoln's public access TV channel, shortly after her failing

health forced her to resign from the council.

Snyder, 66, who had served on the council for two years, died just before

midnight Wednesday after a 15-month battle with pancreatic cancer. Her

funeral is scheduled for 10 a.m. Monday at First-Plymouth Congregational

Church in Lincoln.

In an announcement Thursday, Lincoln Mayor Beutler described her as a

" true public servant who left a lasting impact on the City of Lincoln. "

" It's quite a loss, for the community as well as for the family, " said

Dennis Grams, Snyder's first cousin and former director of the Nebraska

Department of Environmental Quality.

Founder of Snyder Physical Therapy in Lincoln, Snyder was a runner and a

longtime advocate for the Lincoln trails system. She also had served on the

Lincoln-Lancaster County Board of Health.

Snyder was elected to the City Council in May 2009. After Lincoln voters

approved construction of the arena in May 2010, the first-year council

member was tapped to be chairwoman of the West Haymarket Joint Public

Agency, the governing board responsible for the project.

University of Nebraska Regent Tim Clare served with her on that governing

board.

He said he and his family had been friends with her for a quarter century.

His father, Lincoln orthopedic surgeon Pat Clare, worked closely with Snyder

in her physical therapy practice.

Clare said Snyder had a national reputation in her profession.

" She was a pioneer in the field, she was ahead of her time, " he said. " She

was an outstanding, compassionate, very bright, very capable professional.

She carried that discipline with her into everything she did. "

In fact, he said, University of Nebraska Medical Center faculty told him at

a recent regents meeting that they were hearing inquiries about Snyder's

health from physical therapists across the country. Grams said his cousin

made such close friends with other physical therapists across the country

that several came to stay with her and help care for her during her final

illness.

Clare credited Snyder's consensus-building and transparent style for

winning broad community support for the arena.

Nebraska Athletic Director Tom Osborne said Snyder had worked with a number

of NU athletes during her career as a physical therapist.

" She was very professional in everything she did, very competent - and

those of us in athletics appreciated it. "

Snyder was divorced and had no children. Her parents are no longer living

and her only brother was killed in a National Guard plane crash in 1969,

said Grams, who said Snyder doted on his children and grandchildren.

He described Snyder as a talented businesswoman and entrepreneur as well as

an active member of the community. Her run for City Council was the

fulfillment of a longtime dream.

" She always wanted to be in the political world - she had that itch, " he

said. " If she was going to stay alive, she probably would have run for

higher office. She was good at bringing people together. I don't know of

anybody who didn't like her. "

Snyder kept working even after she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in

July 2010. Saying she'd never missed a day of work because of illness,

Snyder said at the time she was surprised by the diagnosis. It came only a

short time after she ran a marathon in April 2010.

She continued to serve on the council while receiving treatment, but stepped

down Sept. 11, only days after attending a groundbreaking ceremony for the

arena.

" I wanted the groundbreaking before I became too ill, " she said in the

interview afterward. " I know I won't make it to the first opening, but I

very much can dream and think about the first show and the first opening of

the arena. "

A trails center now under construction at Lincoln's Union Plaza will be

named in Snyder's honor.

Former State Sen. Di Schimek of Lincoln, a Democrat, recently was

appointed to serve out the remainder of Snyder's term on the council. She

has said she will run for the seat in 2013. Beutler announced Thursday that

he had selected Council Chairman Gene Carroll for Snyder's seat on the arena

governing board. The selection is up for a council vote on Oct. 17.

Kovacek, PT, DPT, MSA

PKovacek@...

Cell (313) 492-4293

Personal Fax

www.PTManager.com

CA Physical Therapy Bill Blocks Regulatory Action | NBC Los

Angeles<http://ptmanagerblog.com/ca-physical-therapy-bill-blocks-regulatory-ac>

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Physical Therapy Bill Blocks Regulatory Action Law blocks regulatory action

against certain health care professionals

By

Snepp<http://www.nbclosangeles.com/results/?keywords=%22+Snepp%22 & author=y & \

sort=date>

|

Friday, Oct 7, 2011 | Updated 2:01 PM PDT

[image: Physcial Therapy Bill Blocks Regulation]

AP

File Photo: A patient undergoes physical therapy.

After intense lobbying by the California Medical Association and its

legislative allies, Governor Jerry Brown signed into law this week a bill

that blocks regulatory action against certain health care professionals

specially favored by the association.

“There appears to be two sets of laws, one for those with the big dollar

lobbying war chests and one for the second-class citizens, like patients and

the average taxpayers,” said Gaspar, a spokesperson for a group of

physical therapists that opposed the governor’s decision. “Powerful special

interests like the CMA seem to think that they are above the law.”

The governor’s signature writes an end to a bitter political battle over an

issue that seems at first narrowly parochial: whether the state’s physical

therapists should be allowed to work for doctor-owned medical corporations.

For more than a year state regulators have interpreted existing law as

making this practice illegal.

Lobbyists for the CMA, the California Podiatric Medical Association and the

California Chiropractic Association have repeatedly tried to get the law

changed, but failed.

<http://www.nbclosangeles.com/multimedia/>

According to their opponents, they then resorted to backroom maneuvering

that has compromised the legislative process and ultimately made the

governor himself a party to selective law enforcement in the interest of a

powerful political lobby.

“What the governor signed was never open to public debate,” Gaspar told

NBC4. “It bypassed the normal committee process and was jammed through in

the final days of the legislative session.”

These tough words reflect the intensity of feeling on both sides of the

controversy and provide some measure of the stakes involved.

Gaspar estimates that more than 80 percent of Calirofornia's 25,000 physical

therapists, also known as PTs, work in legal practice settings.

But he claims that the minority who work for doctor-owned medical

corporations represent an important revenue stream for their employers. They

also represent an opportunity for doctors to extend their control of service

professions and to take an extra piece of the insurance pie by referring

patients to their own PTs, Gaspar said.

The CMA and its supporters counter that an “integrated” approac ensures the

best treatment.

But vocal lobbyists for the independent therapists’ camp say it creates a

conflict of interest that leads to unnecessary for-profit referrals, raises

health care costs, and threatens to put self-employed therapists out of

business.

“If we cannot eliminate illegal and costly referral-for-profit schemes,”

Gaspar said, “there can be no hope for solving the more difficult problems

with health care and our budget.”

Twice in the past six months, state Assemblywoman Hayashi, who receives

large political donations from the CMA and other medical groups, tried to

persuade her legislative colleagues to change existing law to allow PTs to

work for medical corporations. In each instance her proposal died in

committee.

She and her supporters then began pressuring pressing the Physical Therapy

Board of California, a regulatory arm of the Department of Consumer Affairs,

to suspend enforcement action against therapists employed by such

corporations so that they could continue work with impunity. They also

persuaded a joint legislative committee to launch an audit of the Board,

claiming -- without offering any proof -- that its outgoing director had an

improper relationship with lobbyists for independent PTs.

Finally at the end of the legislative term, Senate Pro tem Darrell Steinberg

(D-Sacramento) and other Democrats took over for Hayashi, adding an

amendment to an omnibus regulatory measure, SB 543, that would effectively

accomplish what she wanted by suspending for one year any regulatory action

against physical therapists who are working for medical corporations.

Tucked away in the omnibus bill, the amendment easily passed the Assembly

and the Senate several weeks ago with no invitation to public debate and no

referral to any committee for consideration.

“It is not good government to sneak an amendment into a ‘must pass’ bill at

the last minute,” said Gaspar, “and to blindly favor powerful special

interests over patients and taxpayers.”

Steinberg’s press spokesman, Barankin, told NBC4 that the Senator’s

main objective was to provide a cooling-off period so that the two sides

could work out a compromise. “This is something the legislators thought we

should evaluate. There are so many ways of going about this, considering

Hayashi’s open agenda. The main thing is to figure out a complex issue.”

Borrowing an argument from Hayashi, he warned that rapid enforcement action

“might hurt patients.”

He also insisted that Steinberg’s vote had been based on conscience and

denied that the Senator or anyone else had been steamrollered by a powerful

political lobby.

“This clearly is not a and Goliath case. It is a Goliath v Goliath

case,” Barankin said, referring to the CMA and its opponents in the

California Physical Therapy Association, which advocates for independent

therapists.

The remark baffles CPTA officials who say that their group spent only

$57,000 lobbying against the Hayashi bill on the Assembly side, while

proponents, including the CMA, spent $2.4 million.

The CPTA’s Defoe said the newly signed Steinberg measure grants

medical corporations leverage over “any future outcome on these issues [and]

another year to operate outside the boundaries of the law.”

“At a minimum,” she said, “they get to continue a scheme that shows up time

and again as taking way more money out of the health care delivery system

than is necessary and provides inadequate care.“

*More on the Physical Therapy battle:*

*Physical Therapy Group Audited by

State*<http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/politics/Physical-Therapy-Group-Audited\

-by-State-128717163.html>

*Physical Therapy Bill

Defeated*<http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/health/Physical-Therapy-Bill-Defeate\

d-124626389.html>

*Physical Therapy Clinics

Scrutinized*<http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Physical-Therapy-Clinics-12\

4111484.html>

*Battle Over CA Physical Therapy

Intensifies*<http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/politics/-Agency-Head-Under-Fire-\

in--Battle-Over-State-Physical-Therapy-Trade--124590734.html>

*Physical Therapy Bill

Delayed*<http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Physical-Therapy-Bill-Delayed-1\

24223084.html>

via nbclosangeles.com<http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/politics/131353728.html>

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