Proposed revisions to the American Medical Association’s Code of Medical Ethics would remove language that supports direct billing and condemns clinicians who charge markups for laboratory or pathology services. The changes could weaken efforts to rein in billing practices that CAP leaders argue are not in the best interest of the patient and that the AMA currently defines as unethical.

“The importance of this is that many states utilize the AMA’s code of ethics as their code of ethics for things related to medicine. . . . So, if you change the AMA code of ethics that these laws are based on, then people can make the argument that since these ethics principles have changed, perhaps these laws need to be changed,” Daniel C. Zedek, MD, tells CAP TODAY. He is an alternate delegate to the AMA House of Delegates for the CAP and is director of dermatopathology at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine.

My latest in CAP TODAY’s Put it On the Board section. Read the whole shebang.