Dear Colleagues,

I am immensely proud to report to you that CSP has made great strides this year in our advocacy efforts within the state legislature in Sacramento.

CSP’s sponsored legislation, AB 2107, which will allow pathologists to perform remote digital pathology review using the primary site's CLIA, has been approved by the State Assembly!! The bill now moves to the State Senate, where it will be considered later this year. Please see Dr. Anne Deucher’s CSP Advocacy Report below for more detail on the back-and-forth process report she and her committee undertook to navigate the bill past some significant opposition.

In April, eight CSP volunteer leaders travelled to Sacramento to lobby legislators in support of AB 2107. We participated in the California Medical Association’s annual legislative advocacy day and, in the afternoon, shepherded by our lobbyists Ryan Spencer and Cathleen Galgiani, met with legislators and staff seeking their support for AB 2107.

CSP leaders are welcomed on the floor of the State Assembly chambers in Sacramento.

Thanks to the following members who took time to advocate for CSP in Sacramento:

Dr. Zoltan Laszik, UCSF; Dr. Derek Marsee, CSP Past President and private practice in Sacramento; Dr. Jaclyn Watkins, Pathology Residency Director at UC Davis; Dr. Keluo Yao, Cedars Sinai, Los Angeles; Dr. William Yong, CSP Secretary/Treasurer, UC Irvine; Dr. Lorene Chung, Pathology Resident at UC Davis.

And last week, we issued an Advocacy Alert to CSP members and non-members alike, asking them to contact their legislators, seeking their support for AB 2107 on the Assembly floor. The bill was approved by a vote of 60-0 on Thursday, May 23. Thanks to all of you who took the time to contact their elected leaders on behalf of CSP.

CSP leaders meet with Assemblyman Phillip Chen, author of CSP sponsored AB 2107. 

Dr. Manju Aron and her Education Committee have made great progress in finalizing speakers and topics for CSP’s Annual Meeting, December 4-7 in San Francisco. Please watch for registration information in the coming weeks. Sponsors and exhibitors can register now to secure your exhibit space and demonstrate your support for California pathologists, researchers, and laboratory professionals in the Golden State.

On the membership front, this year, Dr. Bill Yong and his Membership Committee have made great progress enhancing member value and increasing membership numbers through individual member retention and recruitment and the addition of practice group members – including UCSF Pathology. BIG thanks to Dr. Steve Long of UCSF for his efforts.

Finally, I am pleased to announce the CSP Board of Directors has commissioned a Capital Campaign to raise funds from CSP members, non-members, and corporate partners, to ensure the organization’s long-term financial sustainability. At our annual planning meeting in January, the board approved in concept a fundraising effort to strengthen our financial reserves and to replenish the Legal Defense Fund, which we have utilized in a lawsuit, Lok v. LA Care, to stop unfair reimbursement practices of this Los Angeles based insurance carrier and send a message to the rest of the health care reimbursement market.

The campaign objective is to raise $100,000 for CSP Financial Reserves and $100,000 for CSP’s Legal Defense fund over the next 18 months. The board strongly believes that with CSP’s renewed strategic objectives – focused on enhanced member value, improved marketing and positioning of our annual meeting, and diligent financial stewardship, a successful Capital Campaign will position CSP for success in the years and decades to come.

Please watch for additional announcements soon and discover how you can make your financial contribution to sustain CSP’s future.

Emily Ann Green, MD

CSP President

Join fellow CSP members for an informative webinar discussing idiopathic multicentric Castleman disease (iMCD), presented by Imran Siddiqi, MD, PhD, of the USC Keck School of Medicine. iMCD is a rare, cytokine-driven disease characterized by lymphadenopathy at multiple lymph node sites.

iMCD is a subtype of Castleman disease (also known as giant lymph node hyperplasia, lymphoid hamartoma, or angiofollicular lymph node hyperplasia), a group of lymphoproliferative disorders characterized by lymph node enlargement, characteristic features on microscopic analysis of enlarged lymph node tissue, and a range of symptoms and clinical findings.

People with iMCD are often misdiagnosed with autoimmune, malignant, and infectious disorders due to overlapping symptoms. Pathologists are critical in the diagnostic evaluation of iMCD, as the published criteria includes major, minor, and exclusionary requirements that can only be met with histopathological grading and confirmation of laboratory values.

What will this webinar empower you to do?



• Explore the pivotal role that pathologists play in diagnosing iMCD, an elusive and debilitating disease that poses unique diagnostic challenges.
• Learn to identify and grade the histopathological features essential for confirming an accurate iMCD diagnosis, aligning with established criteria.
• Gain valuable insights into the urgency of timely management and discover the treatment guidelines crucial for effectively addressing iMCD.

As Dr. Green mentioned above, we have navigated many moving parts to advance AB 2107 through the legislature.

In early April, the bill was presented to the Business and Professions Committee with a request from the chair for CSP leaders to meet with organizations opposed to the bill – namely the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW), which represents a good number of laboratory personnel in California. In later April, the bill passed the Appropriations Committee (a big hurdle) with a price tag of only 91K/yr (anything over 150K/yr could have gotten hung up in Appropriations).

In late April/early May, CSP’s lobbyists, Ryan Spencer and Cathleen Galgiani met with the Unions and after significant discussion it was apparent that the only way to move the bill without labor opposition was to limit the bill to pathologists (removing 'other lab personal', including CLS and PhD-level directors).

Therefore, the bill has been narrowed to allow only pathologists to do remote digital pathology review using the primary site's CLIA certificate. We believe AB 2107 represents very significant progress that provides much needed flexibility and certainty for California pathologists and enhances patient access and improves patient safety.

At least one potential hurdle remains. We held a zoom meeting with the state LFS legal/legislative team to ask the technical question of, “If California law and federal law share the same linguistics, but CA and CMS interpret the law differently, will our bill as written be accepted?” We plan to meet again with the LFS legal/legislative regarding the newly worded bill.  

Finally, I thank everybody who raised the concern about how the bill might affect CA-located pathologists. If/when we get sign off by CA LFS of the presently written bill, we can revisit this issue if significant concern remains.

We will continue to keep CSP members updated in this space on the progress of AB 2107 and CSP’s other legislative priorities impacting California pathologists and our partners.

Anne Deucher, MD

CSP Advocacy and Practice Management Committee Chair

Annual Meeting Exhibitor and Sponsorship Opportunities

The CSP events team has opened up sales/reservations for exhibit space and sponsor opportunities for CSP’s 2024 Annual Meeting, December 4-7 in San Francisco. With earlier marketing, a simpler registration process and pricing, continued quality education and new special sessions and events, we anticipate attendance to be significantly great in numbers and attendee engagement. 

To secure your exhibit space and demonstrate your support for California pathologists, researchers, and laboratory professionals in the Golden State,

click here or email Julie Wallner, CSP corporate relations manager at jwallner@amgroup.us.

Manju Aron, MD

CSP Education Committee Chair

Practice Group Memberships

We are very excited to welcome the UCSF Pathology Department and the Glendale Pathology Associates Medical Group to the growing family of pathology groups that have taken advantage of discounted group membership rates to sponsor multiple members of their groups as CSP active members, with full benefits. Membership has outsized effects by empowering legislative efforts, uniting for legal battles against unfair practices, providing education, and garnering vendor support for the society’s goals. If you would like to know more about CSP’s practice group membership discounts, please contact me at yongwh@hs.uci.edu or Jacob Gray, CSP’s Membership Manager at jgray@amgroup.us.

Communications

As mentioned in the last e-news, the Membership Committee is working diligently to improve CSP’s presence online in social media and with improvements to the CSP website. Dr. Elena Enbom of Quest Diagnostics, has worked closely with CSP communications staff to develop an “editorial calendar” and worked to develop content with input from members of the committee. Please find CSP on social media and begin to like, forward posts and submit your own!  

Member Engagement

One valuable outcome from the formation of regular committees to develop and advance CSP’s strategic objectives has been the opportunity to involve and engage more individual CSP members. Just off the top of my head, I know we have added new members because of CSP’s participation in the CMA legislative Conference in Sacramento, Corporate Partners Committee, and the always important efforts of our Education Committee. If you would like to learn more about CSP committee involvement, please visit the CSP website: www.calpath.org/committees

Webinar Sponsorship Opportunities Available

As announced earlier in the e-news, CSP is hosting a Webinar on June 13 from noon to 1pm on Idiopathic Multicentric Castleman Disease, sponsored by Recordati Rare Diseases.

If your organization is interested in hosting a similar webinar for CSP members, please contact CSP Executive Director, Dave Butler for sponsorship and promotional information. Promotion includes visibility in the monthly e-news, two all-member e-blasts, two social media posts and on the CSP website. Dave can be reached at dbutler@amgroup.us.

William H. Yong, MD

CSP Secretary/Treasurer; CSP Membership & Communications Committee Chair