January 8, 2025

President’s Letter from Bill Steinbach – 2025 Opportunities for the Society and Individuals

Happy New Year! It might be charitable to label 2025 as “intriguing” for healthcare. New years bring new challenges, but also new opportunities. As the Society and as individual practitioners, we have our work cut out for us – but the future is also bright because of what we are doing now.

Expanding the pipeline

As the Society, we continue to extend our meetID and SUMMERS programs to more students and residents. The pediatric ID workforce is a priority for PIDS, and these programs have shown that interest in our specialty is there if we can reach them. Our Giving Tuesday campaign in December successfully raised enough funds to add 2 more participants to meetID for 2025 – this is a massive step forward to address this chronic problem. While the programs are too young to see concrete realization of folks matriculating into our specialty, the feedback is overwhelmingly positive, and the energy is growing.

Our cohort for March’s St. Jude/PIDS Pediatric Infectious Diseases Research Conference are announced in this newsletter. And be on the lookout for the opening of this year’s SUMMERS application around the middle of February.

As individuals, it is also directly on all of us at our respective institutions to make the peds ID rotation the most exciting, most interesting, most rewarding experience your students and residents could choose. Think back on what it was that sold you on pediatric ID. Now get to know your trainees, help them find how they want to change the world and encourage them to continue exploring all we have to offer.

We will need pediatric ID specialists as much, if not more, than we ever have to face our growing threats. Help us recruit the next generation.

Navigating the healthcare environment

This past year’s AMA Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) introduced an ID-specific inpatient code (G0545). This billing code is in effect as of January 1, it and enables us to report additional complexities in hospital evaluation and management services. IDSA has prepared a fact sheet and some FAQs to help. Our understanding is that no additional documentation will be required to use the code as long as it involves care associated with a confirmed or suspected infectious disease performed by a physician with specialized training in ID and addressing areas such as Disease Transmission Risk Assessment and Mitigation, Public Health Investigation, and Complex Antimicrobial Therapy Counseling & Treatment.

For those of us practicing in the United States, the soon-to-be-sworn in administration has put forward some concerning proposals. We’ve heard of proposed reorganization and cutting to the National Institutes of Health. Then there are the suggestions that they will “give infectious diseases a break” for eight years. Rhetoric must be met by facts. The Society will put forward efforts to make sure the public knows that diseases like polio and measles are dire yet preventable, that vaccines work, and that infectious diseases won’t be taking an eight year or even eight second break from us.

I am confident in our community’s abilities to rise up to meet the challenges and opportunities 2025 will present. Use your voice and join our chorus.  This is the time.

Improving the health of children worldwide through philanthropic support of scientific and educational programs.

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