I’m just back from ACP 2019, the annual meeting of the American College of Physicians, held this year in Philadelphia. I had a great time, and may talk about it all week.
Since I usually blog about financial stuff on Mondays, I thought I might write about some of the money issues around attending such a big meeting.
Meeting Registration
Of course, if you are going to a meeting, you will have to register.
The best way to save money on this is to have someone else pay for it. In my case, I was able to use CME funds provided by my employer.
I took a look at the website for the first time in months, and noted a few interesting details:
- Medical students who are already members of the ACP can go to the meeting for free!
- Medical students who are not members can go for a very low price.
- Residents and fellows who are members of the ACP also can attend the meeting for a lower price, though it’s a bit more than the medical student price.
- International attendees may also be able to get a discount: there are lower registration fees for physicians from low/middle/upper-middle income countries.
For those of us who are attendings from the USA, and can’t take advantage of those discounts, we can still get a break on our registration for the meeting if we buy it early. For this year, the “early bird” rate was $80 lower.
The ACP also holds a raffle if you want to register very early for the next meeting. I saw a sign that you could win a free registration to the 2020 meeting and 2 round trip air fares. However, I figure this isn’t a sure thing.
Transportation
Obviously, this can vary tremendously depending on where you live relative to the meeting.
If you have to fly, learning to use a good flight aggregator (a website that compares airfares, like Kayak, Google Flights, or Skyscanner) is tremendously important. Using frequent flyer miles to reduce costs can help.
Of course, if your CME fund will cover this, that’s even better.
For me, since I bring my non-physician spouse along, I still have to cover at least one airfare anyway, so I tend to look for cheaper flights.
If you can drive, that is usually much, much cheaper than flying. However, I’ve found that many conventions are downtown and the parking costs are usually outrageously high. Consider finding a commuter parking lot/friend’s driveway/municipal parking lot a couple of blocks away, and taking getting a lift to the convention center.
I haven’t yet used a bus or train to travel to a meeting, but this can be a good compromise on cost: cheaper than flying, but you don’t have to pay for parking at the convention.
Hotels/Housing
Unless the meeting is in your home town–and maybe even if it is–you will need a place to stay.
There are many potential ways to save on hotel costs:
- If you have a friend who lives in town, you can crash on their couch. Or even in their guest room, if you are lucky.
- You can share a room with another attendee, which can cut housing costs in half.
- Get a hotel room, or even an AirBnB, a little further from the convention site and commute in. This could have worked very well in Philadelphia, given their rail system.
- Book a hotel room through the convention web site. Do this early, or else the only rooms left will be pricey.
I usually choose to spend more on hotels. I don’t want to share a room with a coworker, and in fact my husband usually comes with me to these meetings.
To be honest, I prefer to stay at a hotel in walking distance from the convention center, if not actually attached. Talks start at 7 AM, and even if you don’t want to get up quite that early, the next talks are at 8:15. Adding a 20-40 minute commute to my morning starts to make this feel more like work than I desire.
Convention rates for the hotel do seem to be a bargain during the convention itself. I took a quick look this year on Hotels.com and the Hilton app to compare rates, and the convention rates this year were easily discounted by $100 per night.
On the other hand, a few years ago the ACP meeting was in Washington, D.C., and I wanted to stay an extra night after the meeting. The front desk staff was kind enough to let me know that Saturday nights were much cheaper and suggested that I book online as a new reservation. We saved a good bit with that tip.
If you want your own hotel room near the convention, you can still save some money using hotel points/credit card rewards, or see if you have enough in CME funds to cover this.
Food
Man cannot live on words alone…. Nor can doctors.
Breakfast, coffee breaks, lunch, afternoon snacks, dinner, drinks. If I ate all of those, I’d probably feel bloated and sick. Also, if I paid for them at the convention center, or even at my hotel, I’d get sick again looking at the price. Nevertheless, I need to eat something.
Breakfast
For breakfast, my favorite way to save money is to stay at a hotel where breakfast is included in the rate.
Unfortunately, the hotel I stayed in this year did not offer this. I declined the opportunity to pay for breakfast at their restaurant.
The problem with attending a large conference of doctors, is that every coffee shop within the convention center, or even next door, will be overrun in the morning. My first morning, I was able to find a cafe 3 blocks away that was quite empty except for staff. One of those staff was still in training, but I think I still saved time (though not money) by going there.
Having a refrigerator, microwave, and in-room coffee maker was a good runner-up to a free breakfast. Days 2 and 3, I had oatmeal with coffee in the room before heading out to talks. Unless you love to eat breakfast out, this is a good way to save money, and probably eat a bit healthier
lunch
Lunch offers a few opportunities to save money if you wish.
The ACP offers a free box lunch on Thursday and Friday. You get a meal ticket with your registration, and can pick up the food in the exhibit hall. The line is long, and the food may or may not be what you like, but it is free. They don’t offer this on Saturday, though, so you’ll have to find an alternative for the last day.
If you want to attend an industry-sponsored lunch and lecture, you can score lunch that way. Keep in mind that this is reportable, so if you don’t feel like having your name on a list of people who have accepted gifts from drug companies, you won’t want to go this route.
If you packed food for your trip to the conference, and happen to have extra (or planned for this), this is a great way to eat cheaply and quickly. I ate a peanut butter and honey sandwich quickly on Friday and then had time to sight-see during the lunch break.
Or, you could go out to eat, which is what I did on Thursday and Saturday. I enjoyed lunch with a friend in Chinatown one day, and went to the Reading Terminal Market another. This wasn’t super cheap, but I felt it was part of the tourist experience
Coffee, tea, snacks
Again, the ACP provides mid-morning and mid-afternoon snacks in the Exhibit Hall during these breaks. The lines are still long, and the snacks aren’t the healthiest. But if you are hungry, these are free.
Exhibitors sometimes have cappuccino machines, snacks, etc. They are “free,” except that they will usually scan your badge, which again puts you on the list of those who are accepting gifts from industry. You may or may not care about that. You will probably care about getting tons of e-mails afterwards from the company.
I usually either skip this or carry a snack in my bag which I can eat if I’m hungry. Or else I use this as an excuse to visit a nearby coffee shop and support the local business. The Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts has a lovely cafe across the street from the main entrance to the Convention Center, and I might have gone there several times over the 3 days of the meeting.
Dinner
For dinner, you are usually on your own.
I usually go to the ACP with a friend, and our spouses are friends as well. Though we seldom go out to dinner at home, at the ACP we have a nice time going out to a restaurant at least once.
I think about eating dinner out in a new city as part of my trip/sightseeing.
On the other hand, there may be some events (State chapter receptions, alumni meetings) that you can attend– enough hors d’ouvres can make a dinner. Or at least fill you up enough that you can split dinner later with someone else.
Please notice I did not talk about having work pay for this. Your rules may be different, but my employer makes it clear that they aren’t paying for my meals. The IRS may also have something to say about this if you are in private practice and want to write this off as a business expense–probably “forget about it.”
Entertainment
This might be more for the spouse, since the ACP runs pretty much all day long.
Most conventions are in big cities with plenty of options for entertainment. If you plan ahead, you can look up free or cheap attractions; that’s as good a way as any to see a new city.
In our case, we have a museum membership that offers reciprocity with other museums. Before we left for Philadelphia, we looked up all the museums we could use our card for. He saw 6 museums in 3 days!
I also got a nice surprise when I went across the street to see PAFA (the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts)–they had free admission while they were installing a new show. Granted, some areas were closed, but there was still plenty to see on my lunch break.
Another free or cheap option is just walking around an area, following a self-guided or free (pay what you like) tour.
CME/MOC credit
Keep track of what you actually attend. If you are paying good money to attend, you might as well get credit for it.
This year I finally got this done right after the meeting. What a good move! I had a list of the lectures I attended, and could count up my hours easily.
More importantly, since I need to participate in MOC as a job requirement, I had to get MOC credit as well. In order to claim it, I had to give free form answers (“name three things you learned and will put into practice”); since I was able to refer to my notes easily before they were put away, this was a breeze. Unlike last year.
This year I also noticed a new section on the meeting app, where one could list lectures attended in order to claim state specific CME. If you live in a state that mandates a certain number of CME hours in certain subjects, this looks like an easy way to get some credit.
This was a very long post–if you made it to the end, thank you. I hope it was helpful. I had a great time at the meeting, and plan to write more about the meeting itself. Let me know if you have any questions or comments.