Physicians from across the country paid house calls to their members of Congress this week, visiting Capitol Hill to call for sustainable growth rate (SGR) reform and relief from the regulatory tsunami burdening practices. 
“This gives us the opportunities to not only tell someone the story [we] want to tell, but to listen to their questions and their concerns,” said Donald Jacobs, MD, president of the Minnesota Medical Association. “The No. 1 issue for us is still SGR … it’s getting at the heart of sustainable business and health care.”
Dr. Jacobs and other Minnesota physicians spoke to five of their federal lawmakers during the AMA’s National Advocacy Conference.
“I’m in a physician-owned, physician-run practice,” said David Thorson, MD, a family physician from White Bear Lake, Minnesota and president-elect of the Minnesota Medical Association. “SGR causes uncertainty about where funding is going to come from, and it makes planning two to three years out very difficult.”
The Capitol Hill meetings taking place during the conference come at a crucial time—the current SGR Medicare payment patch will expire on March 31. The bipartisan, bicameral legislation, developed last year to eliminate the SGR, supports innovative new delivery and payment models, and physicians are asking Congress to again consider this legislation.
The Minnesota physicians also pressed lawmakers for relief from regulatory requirements, including meaningful use and the Physician Quality Reporting System.
“We need to start using new tools to deliver care in a more efficient, higher value way – and we can’t do it because we’re handcuffed,” Dr. Thorson said. “And we’re handcuffed and overwhelmed because of a bureaucratic mess,” Dr. Jacobs added.
These face-to-face meetings are increasingly important in a health care environment that places more and more burdens on physicians and turns their time away from patient care.
“Representatives don’t understand what a day-to-day clinical situation is like,” said Maya Babu, MD, a neurosurgery resident at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota and a member of the AMA Board of Trustees. “It’s important for us to explain to them what those clinical situations are like and the impact of these burdens on patients.”
The Minnesota physicians were just three out of hundreds of physicians who advocated on behalf of physicians nationwide during the meeting.
“You see a lot of people coming in and out of these offices—it makes you remember the reason you’re here,” she said. “If you’re not here, someone else might be advocating for a position you don’t like.”
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