AMA President report

Tuesday, January 01, 2013 12:19 PM

Amy Farouk, MA, AMA Staff Assistant IV

AMA gives doctors powerful voice in post-election issues

Colorado’s own Jeremy A. Lazarus, MD, AMA President, spends about 200 days per year criss-crossing the United States, talking with folks about the AMA’s efforts to make an impact on the issues that matter most to America’s physicians and patients. This article was originally published as part of the series, ON THE ROAD WITH DR. LAZARUS, a blog that can be accessed on the American Medical Association home page at www.ama-assn.org.

With November’s contentious elections behind us, Congress has weighty issues to act upon – many before the end of the year.

I am asked frequently how the AMA is proceeding during this critical period. Rest assured that the AMA is giving physicians a powerful voice in our nation’s capital on issues that are vital to the future of medicine.

Among the most pressing of these issues is the Medicare physician payment system. Continually shaken and disrupted by the faulty sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula on which it is based, the instability of this system continues to threaten the financial viability of physicians’ practices and Medicare patients’ access to care. A recent survey confirmed that this instability also is preventing physicians from pursuing more innovative models of delivering care, which could both improve health outcomes and reduce overall health care costs.

Beyond ensuring the 26.5 percent payment cut required by the SGR formula does not take place, we are urging Congress to fully reform the Medicare physician payment system as part of the larger deficit reduction and entitlement reform legislation that is anticipated in 2013. As I wrote a few weeks ago, we have asked Congress to use our principles as the basis of a new, high-performing Medicare program.

We’re also focusing our efforts to preserve graduate medical education funding. Like Medicare physician payments, this funding faces a 2 percent cut under the Budget Control Act of 2011. Proposals for additional substantive cuts also have been placed on the table as lawmakers search for ways to reduce spending. With a predicted physician shortage on the horizon, any cuts to already limited funding would be a great disservice
to our nation’s patients. Visit the AMA Legislative Action Center to write to your members of Congress about this important issue.

In addition to these legislative pursuits, we will continue our work to reduce physicians’ regulatory burden. For instance, we are advocating for a more reasonable approach and greater flexibility in the Medicare meaningful use requirements for electronic health records to accommodate the clinical needs of physicians across specialties and practice settings. Another priority is easing the burden of Medicare’s numerous audit programs, which I wrote about earlier this year.

There’s much to be done, so I encourage you to join the AMA’s Physicians Grassroots Network to stay up-to-date on the latest legislative developments. By doing so, you can add your voice in calling on Congress to address the critical issues for America’s physicians and the patients for whom they care.