Who We Are CMA is the leading advocate for physicians in California. We represent physicians from all corners of the state, in all modes of practice and specialties. Andrew Blumenfeld, M.D. Neurosurgeon Encinitas, CA Medium Group Practice Member since 2000 David Aizuss, M.D. Ophthalmologist Los Angeles, CA Solo Practice Member since 1987 Catherine Gutfreund, M.D. Family Physician Santa Rosa, CA Very Large Group Practice Member since 2001 Peter Bretan, M.D. Urologist Sebastopol, CA Solo Practice Member since 1994 Just a few of our 40,000 members!

Strength in Numbers CMA and its local county medical societies work together to protect the practice of medicine in California. Whether it's in the legislature, in the courts, at the ballot box or in your office, CMA tirelessly supports and aggressively defends its more than 40,000 members.

Membership Is Growing Full paid membership classes plus students, residents, retired and other members

A Dominant Force As the largest health care advocacy organization in California, CMA acts as the unified voice of medicine. We are the predominant defender of MICRA. We protect patients by insisting that proper training be required for any changes to scope of practice. Dr. Jan Sonander, Member Since 1981

Powerful Professional Staff Our advocacy team consists of state and federal lobbyists, policy experts and attorneys monitoring legislative, regulatory and legal activity on behalf of our members. Members have free access to valuable professional resources, including more than 5,400 pages of legal information related to the practice of medicine in CMA’s online health law library.

$10 Million Reasons to Join Members receive one-on-one assistance from CMA’s reimbursement experts, who have recouped $10 million from payors on behalf of CMA physicians in the past five years. These monies represent actual physician reimbursements that would have likely gone unpaid without CMA intervention. Dr. Abhay Vaidya, Member since 2002

Vaccination Fighting to make California a healthier place to live, CMA successfully pushed for ground- breaking legislation to eliminate the personal belief exemption from school vaccination requirements. The measure, SB 277, generated one of the biggest public health debates at the Capitol in years. SB 277 eventually made its way to the governor’s desk, where it was quickly signed into law. Dr. Richard Pan, Member Since 1999

Scope of Practice CMA has repeatedly defeated attempts to expand non- physicians’ scope of practice, including three dangerous bills in this most recent legislative session (SB 323, SB 538 and SB 622). CMA strongly believes that allowing practitioners to perform procedures they aren’t trained to do can only lead to unpredictable outcomes, higher costs and greater fragmentation of care. CMA’s lawyers led the fight against Governor Schwarzenegger’s attempt to allow Certified Registered Nurse Anesthesiologists to administer anesthesia without physician supervision. Dr. Peter Bretan, Member Since 1994

Other Advocacy Victories Ongoing efforts to expand California’s residency programs were met with success in 2014, as the state budget included $7 million to offer more residency slots for physicians looking to begin practicing medicine in California. CMA was integral in the passage of federal legislation to reform the badly broken Medicare physician payment system. This legislation is worth hundreds of millions of dollars to physicians nationwide over the coming decade. CMA was also key to the passage of the long overdue “California GPCI fix,” which will update the Medicare localities and increase payments to physicians in many counties by more than $400 million in the next 10 years. Dr. Raissa Hill, Member Since 2002

Other Advocacy Victories CMA stopped Assembly Bill 533, which would have given massive market power to health plans and insurers while placing unfair burdens on the state’s physicians and patients. CMA worked with the California DOJ to find a more physician-friendly solution to prevent thousands of CURES prescribers and dispensers from losing access upon the 2.0 system launch. CMA worked tirelessly to ensure physicians are paid correctly under the Affordable Care Act’s primary care rate increase, resulting in changes worth $13.7 million to the physicians of California. Dr. David Kissinger, Member Since 1999

Taking on Big Tobacco CMA is a major supporter of Save Lives California, a broad coalition of physicians, patients, taxpayers and health care workers. The Save Lives coalition filed an 2016 ballot initiative that would increase the state’s tobacco tax by $2 per pack. The initiative aims to reduce tobacco’s death toll and associated health costs, while generating much-needed funds to improve a variety of the state’s health care programs.

Medi-Cal Funding CMA since 2013 has been a lead participant in the “We Care for California” coalition, a group dedicated to helping state leaders understand how the severe underfunding of Medi-Cal harms millions of Californians who have difficulty getting access to the health care they need. The We Care for California coalition organized the largest health care rally in California’s history to urge legislators to fully fund Medi-Cal.

Protecting MICRA CMA led the successful fight against the trial lawyers’ Proposition 46, in one of the most contentious and high-stakes ballot fights in California history. The voters of California ultimately rejected Prop. 46 by one of the widest margins in state history (67 percent to 33 percent). Had it passed, the ballot measure would have decimated the landmark Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act, known as MICRA, which has kept access to affordable health care a reality for patients across the state.