Hundreds of physicians in their white coats rallied in force in the oldest congressional office building in the nation’s capital to show their support for the elected leaders who are advancing bipartisan legislation that would stop the 2.83% cut in Medicare payments to physician practices this year while providing a 2% payment update.

The AMA is leading the charge to reform the Medicare payment system and strongly supports the measure—H.R. 879, the Medicare Patient Access and Practice Stabilization Act. This legislation would, effective April 1, prospectively cancel the physician payment cut that took effect Jan. 1. The measure has already gathered 63 bipartisan co-sponsors.

My latest for the AMA. The whole shebang.

Congress wrapped up its business in 2024 by failing to stop a fifth consecutive year of physician pay cuts that are threatening access to high-quality care, but Medicare Advantage (MA) plans learned from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services that they are in line to get an average pay boost of 4.33% from 2025 to 2026.

Physicians, by contrast, are seeing 2.8% across-the-board cuts due to a broken and unsustainable Medicare payment system that especially affects patients with disabilities and those who live in rural areas. The congressional failure in late 2024 came despite AMA’s leading the charge to reform the Medicare payment system to avoid what AMA President Bruce A. Scott, MD, has called an “oncoming crisis” in medical care.

My latest for the AMA. The whole shebang.

The AMA House of Delegates has adopted new policies outlining physicians’ ethical obligation to provide or seek optimal palliative care for patients with serious illnesses who can benefit from comprehensive management of pain and other distressing symptoms—not only those with terminal illnesses or on the precipice of death.

“Physicians have clinical ethical responsibilities to address the pain and suffering occasioned by illness and injury and to respect their patients as whole persons,” says one of the new policies adopted at the latest AMA Interim Meeting, held in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. “These duties require physicians to assure the provision of effective palliative care whenever a patient is experiencing serious, chronic, complex or critical illness, regardless of prognosis.”

My latest for the AMA. The whole shebang.

Compared with previous years, 2024 saw a lower volume of state bills to inappropriately expand nonphysicians’ scope of practice. But that slight drop in legislative activity is not putting at ease the minds of the physicians and others working on legislative issues at state medical associations and national specialty societies, according to new AMA survey data.

In all, 87% of those surveyed by the AMA in the fall said scope of practice was their top advocacy priority, leading the pack of more than a dozen other critical issues affecting patients and physicians. Nearly all the state medical association representatives surveyed—94%—said scope of practice was their top legislative priority, compared with 67% of respondents from national specialty societies.

My latest for the AMA. The whole shebang.

Since my last post to this blog, I’ve had several bylined articles published on the AMA website. Click below to read further. My piece on Dr. Mukkamala’s recent diagnosis has been particularly well-received.

• AMA President-elect Bobby Mukkamala, MD, has a brain tumor
• Highlights from the 2024 AMA Interim Meeting
• Heartbreaking Medicare cuts start to hit home in Congress
• Bipartisan bill would stabilize Medicare physician pay for 2025
• Fixing IV fluid shortage only a start in addressing drug supply
• 1,800-plus health care organizations recognized on BP control
• What it’s really like in family medicine—from 6 physicians who know

The AMA is giving physicians across the country the resources they need to take advantage of the August recess to make face-to-face contact with their members of Congress to press the need to enact systemic Medicare physician payment reforms to protect older adults’ access to high-quality care.

While such an overhaul to Medicare’s unsustainable physician pay system is unlikely to happen during this election year, these important personal contacts with members of Congress can help shape legislative progress in 2025.

My latest for the AMA. Read the whole shebang.

The AMA wrapped up its Annual Meeting earlier this week. Click below to read the rolling highlights blog I edited to cover the meeting, along with some stories I wrote.

• Highlights from the 2024 AMA Annual Meeting
• Why Medicare pay reform is the AMA’s top advocacy priority
• AMA steps up to fight scope creep that threatens patient safety

One of the biggest drivers of physician burnout are the clerical burdens that gobble up more than half of doctors’ days—and many nights and weekends to boot. Perhaps the most galling part is that a notable chunk of these burdens are based on outright myths, misconceptions and misapplications of the morass of complicated regulations that govern American health care.

That is where the AMA’s “Debunking Regulatory Myths” series comes in to provide clarity to physicians and their care teams. The series is part of the AMA’s practice-transformation efforts and helps reduce guesswork and administrative burdens so physicians’ focus can be on streamlining clinical workflow processes, improving patient outcomes and increasing satisfaction.

My latest for the AMA. Read the whole shebang.

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.”

My latest for the AMA. Read the whole shebang.

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.

My latest for the AMA. Read the whole shebang.

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.

My latest. Read the whole shebang.

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.

My lateset for the AMA. Read the whole shebang.

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.

My latest for the AMA. Read the whole shebang.