To keep our membership informed of the activities and health of the association, we are posting our most recent collection of NERVES committee reports. In this issue you will find the Advisory Committee Report, the Annual Meeting Committee Report, the Communications Committee Report, the CSNS Committee Report, the Membership Committee Report, and the Survey Committee Report.

Advisory Committee Report

By Mary Amann, Advisory Committee Chair

The NERVES Advisory Board is a structured and collaborative group of NERVES members and external advisors whose collective expertise fills knowledge gaps and provides relevant business insights. The Advisory Board meets once a year at the end of the annual meeting. We aim to provide strategic guidance, expertise, and assist with long-range planning that is aligned with our mission, vision, and values to ensure our long-term success.

As a result of feedback from the Advisory Committee this year, we launched our mentorship program which pairs new members with existing members. Joining an organization can be intimidating, and we want our new members to feel welcome from the minute they join.

As we reflect on the new year ahead, our most important asset remains our members. We are grateful to RosmanSearch for sponsoring the membership fee for our new members during their first year.

In closing, we would also like to thank our internal and external members who have given their time, expertise, and guidance to NERVES.

Annual Meeting Committee Report

By Kevin Hockenson & Jacob Rodman, Annual Meeting Co-Chairs

The Annual Meeting Committee is very excited about our 2024 Annual Meeting in Chicago! The event will be held May 1-3, 2024, at the Loews Chicago Hotel. The Loews offers incredible city views and is just steps away from the Navy Pier.

We are currently locking in an incredible line up of speakers we believe will be extremely engaging and offer solid practical take aways for us. The committee has heard its members express how important networking time is during our Annual Meeting and have expressed how they would like more of this within the conference. Well, we have heard you and are excited to roll out a new format this year which will offer some fun and different networking opportunities on Thursday afternoon after a morning of exciting educational sessions.

Annual Meeting registration is now available and we are hard at work locking in our fantastic Partners and Annual Sponsors that make this event happen for us!

We are looking forward to seeing you all in Chicago in May!

Communication Committee Report

By Antoine Curtis, Communication Committee Chair

The communication committee is focused on revamping our digital presence via our website and social media pages. We are looking for more volunteers to help support our efforts and encourage all members who would like to help push this effort forward to reach out directly to Antoine Curtis via email at [email protected].

CSNS Committee Report

By Derek Cantrell, CSNS Liaison

Dr. Ratliff called the meeting to order and announced he had two topics of importance he would like to discuss before beginning the EC agenda. Both of these items involve NERVES. (I will be paraphrasing commentary below from my notes)

1. Dr. Tumialan (CSNS Vice Chair & AANS Practice Management Committee Chair) - determine incident rate of neurological surgeries denied for payment after a prior authorization was obtained and clean claim sent out. Dr. Tumialan believes that 12-15% of claims are denied payment in this fashion. Along with Katie Orrico and the Washington Committee, he is working with leaders at Barrow, Goodman Campbell, Semmes-Murphey & CNSA to find some data and then form a survey to send to organized neurosurgery. Apparently the AMA is working on this as well. Dr. Tumialan will follow up with Katie and me to perfect the survey language. The EC Committee was in agreement to proceed.
2. Secondly, Dr. Ratliff relayed a discussion between he and Dr. Wakefield related to NERVES’ declining membership and Survey participation. Dr. Ratliff also mentioned at this time that Dr. Wakefield had submitted a resolution to have the Boards of the parent organizations, AANS & CNS, participate in broadcasting the value of NERVES and also the CSNS assist the CNS membership to gain a better understanding in the value and encourage neurosurgical practices of all varieties to join and participate in NERVES. Dr. Ratliff said this is one of his highest priorities to preserve the value of the NERVES Society and help it to flourish in the future. The Committee was in full favor of submitting the Resolution for the fall meeting.

Both of these resolutions were passed during the CSNS Plenary Session in September in Washington, DC. Dr. Wakefield and I will report back on progress as these two projects move along.

Thank you for letting me represent NERVES in this manner.

Membership Committee Report

By Sheryl Conticello, Membership Committee Chair

Our membership committee update:

• MGMA conference was successful. Antoine and Lisette met with several potential members during a social. Lisette held a 2nd social. Several attendees were able to join!
• Mentorship Program – we have received positive feedback for the initial roll-out
• RosmanSearch has partnered with NERVES to promote membership by offering to pay for new member dues for their 1st year. Seven new members have joined through this promotion.
• Developing a “flyer” to broadcast NERVES to increase awareness and value of NERVES:
• Committee can use the same flyer as the RosmanSearch promotion
• Working through national and regional society lists for possible means of communication
• Introduced a resolution at the CSNS meeting this fall for society support of NERVES:
• Resolution passed
• Working through next steps for how CSNS will work with AANS & CNS
• Increase in 20 new members
• There has been a committee restructure:
• New Membership Committee chair
• Four Directors at Large to work the committee
• Regional qualification removed – can be from anywhere within the country

Survey Committee

By Brent Patterson, Survey Committee Chair

The Survey Committee is working towards the upcoming release of the 2023 NERVES Socio-Economic Survey data report. This year we experienced a substantial increase in participation over 2022's survey - a 67% increase, to be specific. Thank you to everyone who took the time to input their information and enhance the quality of this essential benchmarking tool.

Once again, we will be offering the data from the NERVES & SNIS NeuroInterventional Survey Data Report. For those who participated in each survey, the data report will be free. If you did not participate in this year's surveys and would like copies of the reports, the costs will be $2,000 for members and $2,500 for non-members.

If you are interested in serving on the Survey Committee, please reach out to Brent Patterson at [email protected].