Catch up with the news and key moments from the November 2020 AMA Special Meeting, a virtual gathering of the AMA House of Delegates that ran Nov. 13–17. For a briefer rundown, check out this list of our top 10 stories from the Special Meeting.

My other stories from the meeting:

• AMA: Racism is a threat to public health
• Are physicians obliged to get vaccinated against COVID-19?
• When patients are prejudiced, here’s what physicians should do
• As challenges mount, AMA forms section for private practice doctors

A coalition of organizations representing physicians and allied health professionals, including the AMA, sent a letter to congressional leadership expressing support for H.R. 8702, the “Holding Providers Harmless from Medicare Cuts During COVID-19 Act of 2020.” The bill was introduced by Reps. Ami Bera, MD, a California Democrat, and Larry Bucshon, MD, a Republican from Indiana.

H.R. 8702 would effectively freeze payments at 2020 rates for services scheduled to be cut in 2021 for a period of two years, while allowing the planned E/M payment increases to take place as scheduled. It would also avert steep payment cuts for hospital, nursing home and critical care visits. At the end of the two-year reprieve, the full budget-neutrality adjustment would take effect.

“This critical legislation recognizes the importance of allowing significant scheduled pay increases to primary care and others who primarily provide E/M services to take effect while also avoiding the devastating corresponding cuts for physician and nonphysician providers that will occur because of Medicare’s budget-neutrality requirements,” says the letter from the AMA and more than 70 other signatories.

My latest for the AMA. The whole shebang.

The AMA and 127 other state medical associations and national medical specialty societies that represent hundreds of thousands of U.S. doctors are urging payers to “immediately implement and pay for Current Procedural Terminology code 99072 to compensate physician practices for the additional supplies and new staff activities required to provide safe patient care” during the COVID-19 public health emergency without patient cost-sharing.

My latest for the AMA. The whole shebang.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is extending compliance dates for a complex federal regulation aimed at ending information-blocking practices that impede the secure exchange and use of electronic health information by patients, doctors and health care organizations.

The HHS Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) says the final rule, implemented under the 21st Century Cures Act (Cures Act), now has an “applicability date” of April 5, 2021. On and after that date, all “actors”—which includes health information networks and exchanges, EHR vendors and health care providers—“will be subject to information blocking.”

My latest for the AMA. The whole shebang.

The AMA has published an update to the Current Procedural Terminology (CPT^®) code set that includes new vaccine-specific codes to report immunizations for the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2.

Working closely with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the CPT Editorial Panel has approved a unique CPT code for each of two coronavirus vaccines as well as administration codes unique to each such vaccine.

The new CPT codes clinically distinguish each coronavirus vaccine for better tracking, reporting and analysis that supports data-driven planning and allocation. The CPT codes are available prior to the public availability of the vaccines to facilitate the updating of health care electronic systems across the U.S.

My lede for the AMA. The whole shebang.