Dr. Shingleton takes office as ASCRS president

Bradford J. Shingleton, MD, assumed the duties of president of the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery (ASCRS) Saturday at the organization's annual meeting. Dr. Shingleton succeeds Richard L. Lindstrom, MD, outgoing president of the ASCRS.

Dr. Shingleton is a glaucoma and cataract specialist with Ophthalmic Consultants of Boston. He is also a surgeon in ophthalmology at the Boston Eye Surgery & Laser Center and the Cape Cod Eye Surgery & Laser Center and maintains privileges at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary. His academic titles include assistant clinical professor in ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School and clinical instructor in ophthalmology at Tufts University School of Medicine.

In his address before the ASCRS opening session, Dr. Shingleton spoke of the need for Medicare reform.

"The formulas used to calculate doctors' reimbursements under Medicare are a time bomb," Dr. Shingleton said.

Reductions in reimbursements for physician services, in light of rising costs and inflation, threaten to make it very challenging for many physicians to continue providing services to Medicare patients, he added.

With a failing Medicare system, "we must be proponents of solutions, and we need to be bold in presenting them," Dr. Shingleton said. "As a nation, it is clear that we simply cannot afford to provide every patient with the latest, highest-cost services and technology as part of basic care."

One solution would be to have a payer system that provides a high-quality, basic level of care and services to all patients, with an optional patient-shared payment responsibility for elective services, Dr. Shingleton said.