In the nation’s first full year after widespread availability of safe and effective SARS-CoV-2 vaccines to combat COVID-19, U.S. health spending on physician services grew at just a 2.6% rate in 2022. That was down from 7% in 2020, 4.8% in 2021 and 3.9% in the prepandemic year of 2019.

That slowdown was “due to both slower growth in prices and utilization of services,” according to an AMA Policy Research Perspectives report. The sluggish growth in physician spending pales in comparison to the continued growth in spending on prescription drugs, which saw 8.4% growth in 2022.

Moreover, even as the rate of physician growth slowed, the report concludes that “the big picture measures for 2022 suggest that U.S. health spending is back to similar growth rates as before the pandemic.”

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After helping state medical associations and national specialty societies defeat more than 100 bills to inappropriately expand nonphysicians’ scope of practice in 2023, the AMA is again relentlessly joining its allies in organized medicine to continue the fight for physician-led, team-based care in this year’s legislative session.

This intensive and effective advocacy effort has ranged across the country, as the AMA has helped battle scope creep in Alaska, Connecticut, Georgia, Oklahoma, New Hampshire and elsewhere.

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After a routine review of practice operations in mid-February, Omar Maniya, MD, opted to extend the line of credit for the 40-employee New Jersey primary care physician practice that he serves as CEO.

Little did he know the move would prove to be a just-in-time lifeline as within days the cyberattack-driven Change Healthcare cyber outage would have a devastating financial impact on physician practices across the country. At Dr. Maniya’s practice, called Maniya Health, “95% of our revenue vanished overnight,” forcing the practice to borrow nearly $200,000 to keep things going.

“We’ve never used our line of credit—ever—until this,” said Dr. Maniya, who trained as an emergency physician and provides urgent care three days a week for the practice in addition to his executive role. “Having that cushion is what allowed us to survive the storm without having to lay off or furlough employees.”

Maniya Health has had to reschedule iron-infusion appointments and reexamine its supply-ordering, and it is far from alone in feeling the effects of the cyber outage, as informal AMA survey findings (PDF) show. According to the survey, conducted March 26–April 3 with a convenience sample of 1,400 respondents, restricted claims-processing functionality since the cyberattack has resulted in:

• 36% of respondents reporting suspension in claim payment.
• 32% being unable to submit claims.
• 22% being unable to verify eligibility for benefits.

Practices of 10 physicians or fewer appear to be particularly hard hit. They represented 78% of all respondents.

The survey was conducted after UnitedHealth Group, which owns Change Healthcare, said that claims would be flowing by the weekend of March 23. Despite the company’s assurances, serious disruptions continue.

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The Biden administration has recently taken some positive steps to help more Americans gain access to high-quality health insurance coverage.

First is a newly finalized rule governing short-term, limited-duration insurance that closes loopholes and protects people from misleading marketing tactics by requiring health insurers to be up front with consumers about coverage so they can better distinguish such plans from more comprehensive coverage.

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The AMA is the physician’s relentless and powerful ally in health care, and unprecedented times require bold action. Physicians face far too many challenges that interfere with patient care.

That’s why the AMA is advocating to keep doctors at the head of the health care team, reform the Medicare physician payment system, relieve the burden of overused prior authorizations and so much more.

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The U.S. drug-overdose and death epidemic continues to kill more than 100,000 people a year and demands immediate and collective action.

“As a nation, we have to do better,” AMA President Jesse M. Ehrenfeld, MD, MPH, noted in a Leadership Viewpoints column last year. “As physicians, we must show the leadership necessary to make a difference.”

At the individual level, such leadership can include becoming familiar with evidence-based, practical insights to address the opioid-overdose epidemic. The AMA has created a seven-episode podcast series that serves up just that, with each episode being enduring material that is designated by the AMA for PRA Category 1 Credit.

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The time-wasting, care-delaying payer cost-control process known as prior authorization is the bane of physicians’ existence.

According to the most recent AMA survey (PDF) of 1,001 practicing physicians, 89% of respondents said prior authorization had a significant or somewhat negative clinical impact, with 33% reporting that prior authorization had led to a serious adverse event such as a death, hospitalization, disability or permanent bodily damage, or other life-threatening event for a patient in their care. …

As the physician’s powerful, relentless ally in health care, the AMA’s hard work to ease the burdens of prior authorization is starting to pay off. There is a long way to go yet, but below you will find some positive signs of progress in the AMA’s long-standing, focused effort to fix prior authorization.

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Telehealth use exploded to play an outsized role in helping patients safely access care when the COVID-19 pandemic first hit four years ago, but it is wrong to think of this form of digitally enabled care as a relic of 2020. Indeed, 74% of physicians work in practices that offer telehealth.

Rather, it seems as though every day offers more evidence of how telehealth can help improve access to care, save lives and advance the quality of care in a wide array of physician specialties and clinical conditions.

My latest for the AMA. The whole shebang.