AMA in the News

AMA in the News: March 2024

. 7 MIN READ

AMA in the News covers media coverage and mentions about the American Medical Association. Find articles recognizing our efforts in health care, advocacy, medical education and improvements in public health. Read coverage on the achievements of our leadership and the members of the AMA community.

  1. AMA president on the future of AI tools in clinical settings

    1. Fierce Healthcare, March 29, 2024
    2. Fierce Healthcare caught up with AMA's Jesse Ehrenfeld, MD, MPH,  after the panel about benchmarks for AI tools, the challenge of maintaining them and how to be transparent with patients. 

  2. Washington and New Jersey are reforming prior authorization. Is your state next?

    1. Medpage, March 27, 2024
    2. Prior authorizations for, while harming both patients and clinicians. Nationally, 31% of physicians (PDF) report that these criteria are rarely or never evidence-based, while another 43% say they are only sometimes so, according to the American Medical Association (AMA).

  3. SXSW Insights: The future of AI in health care

    1. Fierce Healthcare, March 27, 2024
    2. During the annual event, American Medical Association President Jesse Ehrenfeld, MD, MPH, and Claire Novorol, co-founder and CMO at Ada Health, both participated in a panel discussion on the future of AI in healthcare.

  4. Supreme Court hears its biggest abortion case since the fall of Roe

    1. Politico, March 25, 2024
    2. The Biden administration and health organizations such as the American Medical Association and the Pharmaceutical Research Manufacturers of America contend that a ruling overriding the FDA’s judgment would invite a stampede of ideologically motivated lawsuits targeting other medications—with contraception, gender-affirming care for transgender patients, HIV prevention and treatment drugs and COVID-19 vaccines being conservatives’ expected next targets.

  5. Change Healthcare Cyberattack: What consumers should know

    1. WebMD, March 25, 2024
    2. Patients may not see the long-term financial effects immediately, Jesse Ehrenfeld, MD, MPH, said, but the financial impact of the crisis has not been mitigated. “Plans are not being paid, practices are being squeezed,” he said.
    3. He cited an internal AMA survey conducted of its members in mid-March, with many reporting they are out of cash, trying to get bridge loans, or taking money from their retirement accounts to stay afloat. 

  6. Medical misinfo runs rampant online. The gov't must retain the right to intervene.

    1. MedPage Today, March 25, 2024
    2. The nation's leading health care organizations, including ours (the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association) and others—and the hundreds of thousands of physicians across the country who we represent—believe that vaccine misinformation poses a grave threat to public health.

  7. Who pays when your doctor’s AI goes rogue?

    1. Politico, March 22, 2024
    2. Advancements in AI promise to improve care, but only if doctors trust the systems and are protected from liability, according to the country’s leading physicians’ group, the American Medical Association. “We’re seeing lawsuits already,” AMA President Jesse Ehrenfeld, MD, MPH, said at a recent meeting on doctors’ lobbying priorities, adding the issue so far has been “a little bit [like] building the plane as you’re flying it.”

  8. Providers 'wasted' $10.6B in 2022 overturning claims denials, survey finds

    1. Fierce Healthcare, March 22, 2024
    2. Importantly, this figure does not include the costs associated with added clinical labor, which the American Medical Association estimates adds $13.29 to the adjudication cost per claim for a general inpatient stay and $51.20 to the cost of inpatient surgery,” the group wrote.

  9. Docs and DME lose last chance for payment fixes

    1. Axios, March 18, 2024
    2. While we appreciate the challenges Congress confronted when drafting the current 2024 appropriations package, we are extremely disappointed that about half of the 2024 Medicare physician payment cuts will be allowed to continue,' said American Medical Association president Jesse Ehrenfeld, MD, MPH, in a recent statement.

  10. U.S. CDC urges measles vaccinations amid rising cases

    1. Reuters, March 18, 2024
    2. The American Medical Association on Monday also urged Americans to get vaccinated against measles.
    3. "We are reminding physicians to talk with their patients about the health risks associated with not being vaccinated and to make a strong recommendation for vaccinations, unless medically inadvisable," said Jesse M. Ehrenfeld, MD, MPH, president of the U.S. doctors' body.

  11. The Change Healthcare attack: What payers need to know

    1. Healthleaders, March 15, 2024
    2. The American Medical Association was not impressed with AHIPA’s seemingly lackadaisical response; President Jesse M. Ehrenfeld MD, MPH, called out the response as a dumbfounding “business as usual approach” after weeks of silence and lack of assistance by AHIPA.

  12. ‘What’s My Life Worth?’ The big business of denying medical care

    1. New York Times, March 14, 2024
    2. Prior authorization has been around for decades, but doctors say its use has increased in recent years and now rank it as one of the top issues in health care. (Publication subscription is required for full or unlimited access.)

  13. Your guide to accessing gender-affirming care

    1. Elle Magazine, March 12, 2024
    2. “Every patient’s unique, and what’s necessary, required, and medically appropriate in one patient may not be in another,” Jesse Ehrenfeld, MD, MPH, the first openly gay president of the American Medical Association, tells ELLE. “That’s why it’s so important to have the range of options for gender-diverse patients to make sure you can provide care that is safe, effective, and appropriate.”

  14. Corporate greed made the Change Healthcare cyberattack worse

    1. New York Magazine, March 7, 2024
    2. “In the letter we wrote, we pointed out our concerns of when you have this level of consolidation of a far-reaching system failure impacting the health care system,” said American Medical Association President Jesse Ehrenfeld, MD, MPH. “And here it is.” (Publication subscription is required for full or unlimited access.)

  15. Q+A with Jesse Ehrenfeld

    1. National Journal, March 7, 2024
    2. Jesse Ehrenfeld, MD, MPH, president of the American Medical Association, is hearing from physicians who can't make payroll or have to liquidate assets after a cybersecurity attack on a major medical-technology company, Change Healthcare, brought claims and payment systems to a halt

  16. How the U.S. is sabotaging its best tools to prevent deaths in the opioid epidemic

    1. STAT News, March 5, 2024
    2. “Outdated views, combined with stigma around treatments for opioid use disorder, combined with the challenging regulatory environment, are leading to a situation where people just aren’t getting evidence-based care,” said Jesse Ehrenfeld, MD, MPH, an anesthesiologist and president of the American Medical Association. “This is a moment where we need everybody to step up and stop dragging their feet.”

  17. What to know about how Medicare pays physicians

    1. KFF, March 6, 2024
    2. Physician and other professional groups, including the American Medical Association, the Medical Group Management Association, and the American Hospital Association, have opposed the payment cuts and expressed concerns that loss of revenue could push physicians to opt out of the Medicare program, leading to access problems for Medicare beneficiaries.

  18. 'Nightmare': Pharmacies, hospitals reel from Change Healthcare outage

    1. Modern Healthcare, March 6, 2024
    2. The AHA, the American Medical Association and the American Health Care Association/National Center for Assisted Living separately sent letters to the Health and Human Services Department requesting accelerated and advanced Medicare payments to bolster provider finances. (Publication subscription is required for full or unlimited access.)

  19. Physicians beg for relief amid Change Healthcare payment crisis

    1. Washington Post, March 6, 2024
    2. “The AMA urges federal officials to go above and beyond what has been put in place and include financial assistance such as advanced payments for physicians,” Jesse M. Ehrenfeld, MD, MPH, said in a statement. (Publication subscription is required for full or unlimited access.)

  20. Physician groups press HHS for more relief following Change cyberattack

    1. Politico, March 5, 2024
    2. “Many physician practices operate on thin margins, and we are especially concerned about the impact on small and/or rural practices, as well as those that care for the underserved,” American Medical Association President Jesse Ehrenfeld, MD, MPH, said in a statement.

  21. How the Change Healthcare hack affects your prescription access

    1. Washington Post, March 5, 2024
    2. Jesse M. Ehrenfeld, MD, MPH, an anesthesiologist and president of the American Medical Association said the hospital where he practices couldn't fill prescriptions for five days because of the hack. He said he is hearing from practices all over the country that they can't send claims, verify coverage or get prior authorization for care. (Publication subscription is required for full or unlimited access.)

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