Heading to Germany: Week of September 27th

Students, Faculty, Residents, Staff, Alumni, Board Members and Friends,

I’m sending this update out a day early because I’m preparing to get on an airplane bound for Germany in a couple of hours. We’ve packed a bunch of things into this short week!

On Monday we hosted our quarterly Board of Trustee meeting on campus. It’s always extremely rewarding to be able to share all the great things that our students, faculty and staff are doing with our Board as well as listen and learn from their observations and recommendations. We’re really lucky to have such an engaged Board of Trustees.



On Tuesday, I spent the day at Capitol Hill participating in Senator Bob Casey’s Higher Education Roundtable. The meeting provided us a forum to discuss key issues affecting higher education in the Commonwealth. I had the opportunity to bring up several issues that I felt would be beneficial to our students. This is what I shared with the group:

1. Federal Student Loan structure is dysfunctional and contributary to our current student loan crisis. Many of our students are graduating with $200K student loan debt. This is exacerbated by relatively high interest rates for Federal loans and the fact that interest starts to accrue once the promissory note is signed as opposed to having interest deferred until graduation or shortly thereafter. The Federal Government really should not be profiting off these loans.
2. As part of the government sequestration, origination fees were placed on federal loans which reduce the net amount a student receives when loans disburse to the school. The student is responsible for repaying the gross loan amount, so they are responsible for repaying money (and interest on those funds) which they never receive. The rates are currently 1.062% for Unsubsidized Loans and 4.248% for PLUS Loans and will drop by only fractions of a percent for loans first disbursed on or after October 1, 2019. Students in most of our programs rely heavily on PLUS loans to fund their education and incur several hundred dollars in fees each year.
3. Congress needs to consider adding graduate students to Pell eligibility. We’re not sure why the Federal government draws a distinction between undergraduate and graduate education in this instance, especially if we’re trying to ensure a diverse student body has the financial means to pursue the health science professions, law and other similar endeavors.
4. Scope of Practice. Our providers should be able to practice at the levels at which they are trained. Pennsylvania’s scope of practice laws limit optometry to the point where many of our graduates leave the state to practice in neighboring states so they can practice full scope. Additionally, audiology is currently not recognized by CMS as an independent profession, thus requiring referrals in order to be reimbursed. Each of our professions are regulated with their scopes limited by archaic rules and regulations. If we are truly going to improve access and quality and decrease costs, professions must be allowed to practice at their highest levels. This is currently not the case. 

As you might imagine, this list spawned a great deal of discussion with everyone around the table that these were issues that Congress and others needed to address now. We’ll see what happens!

Earlier today, I participated in the Special Medical Advisory Group for the Veteran’s Health Administration. While I can’t go into detail, it proved to be an interesting morning discussing programs that will greatly benefit our Veterans in the near future.

Starting next week, the Pennsylvania Ear Institute (PEI) will be seeing patients at The Eye Institute (TEI) on Tuesdays from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. PEI will be providing comprehensive hearing services including evaluations, tinnitus and cerumen management and hearing aid fittings and repairs. Integrating our care is paramount to everything we do. This is a great first step in the right direction! Thanks to the staff for making this happen.

If you remember from one of last month’s updates, low vision patient, Heather Napolitano recently held her annual fundraiser, SeeShore Fest, as a way to advocate for people with low vision issues. Based on her experiences with Dr. Kenny at the William Feinbloom Center, Heather listed The Eye Institute (TEI) as one of the beneficiaries of SeeShore Fest 2019 - and yesterday, Heather stopped by TEI to present the check. Thank you so much to Heather for advocating for TEI!

This week, we are saying goodbye to one of our beloved security guards, Greg Barnes. Greg is retiring after 19 years of looking out for the welfare of others. Thank you for your service in helping to keep our campus safe, we wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.

Today, some of our Salus staff and students are out in Cherry Hill providing vision screenings to homeless veterans at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs recurring event “Stand Downs”. This is such an important cause to be involved with and I’m so proud of the members of our Salus community who volunteer time and again to give back! We are also participating in the Arcadia Health & Wellness Fest today and the Chestnut Hill Fall for the Arts Festival on Sunday! Be sure to check out our University and Health calendars for more information on upcoming events.

If you’ve gone by the Hafter Center recently, I’m sure you’ve noticed the ongoing construction for our new Sensory Garden that will be completed by next summer. To read more about what’s to come with the project, check out salus.edu/sensorygarden.

Finally, I think it’s going to be another nice few days around here, so I encourage you all to get out and enjoy the nice Fall weather. Weather for Berlin is supposed to be partly cloudy, with some rain and about 62 degrees. Perfect running weather! By the time most of you wake up on Sunday I should be well into the 26.2-mile marathon course in Berlin. Should be “fun”! Truth be told, I’m really looking forward to the beer and pretzels (and sports massage) afterwards! Be safe, have fun and look out for one another!

Mike