Through various actions at the 2023 AMA Interim Meeting, the House of Delegates has made it unmistakably clear that the unsustainable Medicare payment system poses a dire threat to patients’ access to high-quality physician care across the nation. In addition to this year’s 2% cut in Medicare physician pay, doctors face a further 3.37% cut set to take effect in January. After adjusting for inflation, physician pay actually fell by 26% since 2001.

“Physicians heed the idea of ‘first do not harm,’” said AMA President Jesse M. Ehrenfeld, MD, MPH. “Yet the payment system year after year inflicts harm on the ability of physician practices to stay afloat. We also are aware of the First Law of Holes. When you find yourself in one, stop digging. We are in a veritable crater. Cutting payments is only taking us deeper.”

My latest for the AMA. Read the whole shebang, and catch up on the other highlights from the Interim Meeting in National Harbor, Maryland.