AMA in the News

AMA in the News: September 2024

. 5 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. Doctors want HHS to investigate electronic health records firms’ high fees

    1. Politico PRO, Sept. 25, 2024
    2. In a letter sent Wednesday to Micky Tripathi, HHS’ national coordinator for health information technology, American Medical Association CEO James L. Madara, MD, said doctors are incurring high costs for transmitting patient data and wants the Department of Health and Human Services to determine whether the fees violate its information-blocking rules. (Publication subscription is required for full or unlimited access.)

  2. Doctors will have to make do with less, again.

    1. Politico, Sept. 20, 2024
    2. Physician groups led by the American Medical Association have made it their No. 1 priority to avert the cut and have also pressed for a broader overhaul of the Medicare physician fee schedule, which Congress created in 1989, so that doctors’ pay keeps pace with inflation.

  3. Overcoming hurdles to value-based care adoption

    1. Medical Economics, Sept. 20, 2024
    2. Concerns about a national physician shortage are growing; the American Medical Association estimates that over 83 million people live in areas without sufficient access to a PCP.

  4. Medicare reimbursement for doctors is in critical condition

    1. MedCity News, Sept. 19, 2024
    2. As a result, according to the AMA (American Medical Association), the Medicare reimbursement for doctor’s offices, when adjusted for inflation, is down almost 30% since 2001. Despite this widening disparity, the government has just proposed cutting the reimbursement rate for doctor’s offices by 2.93%.

  5. Health care leader says medical systems are broken, 'Not the People Within'

    1. Newsweek, Sept. 18, 2024
    2. Nearly half of physicians (48.2 percent) reported experiencing at least one symptom of burnout, according to the American Medical Association (AMA). This is, however, the first time that the number has dropped below 50 percent since 2020.

  6. Is AI the cure to doctor burnout?

    1. Newsweek, Sept. 17, 2024
    2. Last year, according to the American Medical Association, nearly half of doctors reported at least one symptom of burnout: exhaustion, cynicism, detachment or a sense of ineffectiveness.

  7. Medicare is on an unsustainable path. Congress must fix it.

    1. Sun Sentinel, Sept. 16, 2024
    2. According to the American Medical Association, when adjusted for inflation in practice costs, Medicare physician payments declined substantially from 2001 to 2024—a whopping 29%! (Publication subscription is required for full or unlimited access.)

  8. DIY medicine draws frustrated patients to online forums

    1. Axios, Sept. 16, 2024
    2. These patients are essentially reformulating or mixing their own drugs and potentially putting themselves at a great risk for harm and even death on the advice of people they've never met, Bruce Scott, MD, president of the American Medical Association, told Axios.

  9. AMA study shows four pharmacy benefit managers control 70% of the market

    1. Health Exec, Sept. 14, 2024
    2. AMA President Bruce A. Scott, MD, said the data aligns with the position of most physicians who “overwhelming support” regulatory oversight of PBM business practices, specifically policies that rein in “anticompetitive harm resulting from low competition and high vertical integration in the PBM industry.”

  10. Mental health parity rule lauded by health care groups

    1. MedPage Today, Sept. 12, 2024
    2. The American Medical Association (AMA) was also complimentary. "The AMA commends the Biden-Harris administration for their commitment to ensuring that the federal MHPAEA has the teeth to protect patients from health insurance company actions that unfairly and too often discriminatorily restrict access to mental health and substance use disorder care," said AMA President Bruce Scott, MD. (Free registration is required to view content.)

  11. Scoop: Ways and Means weighs doc pay markup

    1. Axios, Sept. 11, 2024
    2. Physicians face a 2.8% cut in pay under the proposed 2025 Medicare physician payment schedule published in July, following a 1.69% reduction in 2024 and 2% drop in 2023, per the American Medical Association.

  12. AMA unveils new CPT codes for 2025

    1. Modern Healthcare, Sept. 10, 2024
    2. The American Medical Association released its updated list of Current Procedural Terminology (CPT®) codes for 2025, adding 270 new universal codes used for billing health care services and reimbursing providers. (Publication subscription is required for full or unlimited access.)

  13. Bad news for physician reimbursements

    1. Becker’s ASC, Sept. 10, 2024
    2. This is a recipe for financial instability. Patients and physicians will wonder why such thin gruel is being served," American Medical Association former President Jesse Ehrenfeld, MD, MPH, wrote in a Nov. 2, 2023 statement. (Free registration is required to view content.)

  14. AMA to CMS: Be clear with doctors and patients about effects of cuts to physician pay

    1. Medical Economics, Sept. 9, 2024
    2. “In other words, while the costs of paying clinical and administrative staff, rent, and purchasing equipment and supplies are projected to rise by 3.6 percent, physicians’ payments will decrease by nearly (3%),” said the comment letter from CEO and Executive Vice President James L. Madara, MD. “Yet, this proposed rule is silent on the impact of the growing gap between what Medicare pays for care and what it costs to provide that care. A chorus of authorities on the Medicare program has expressed concern about the ability of patients to continue receiving high-quality care as physician payments erode.”

  15. American Medical Association slams pay cut, G-codes in proposed Medicare pay rule for doctors

    1. Fierce Healthcare, Sept. 9, 2024
    2. In its comments to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on the draft CY2025 Medicare physician fee schedule (PFS), the American Medical Association badgered CMS on its proposed 2.8% cut to physician payment. 

  16. AMA President Dr. Bruce Scott highlights crisis-level challenges in health care access 

    1. NBC Today Show, Sept. 4, 2024
    2. Bruce Scott, MD: We all became physicians to take care of patients, and that is getting tougher every day. Right now, things are at almost a crisis level, and physicians are literally closing their practices.

  17. Doctors use problematic race-based algorithms to guide care every day. Why are they so hard to change?

    1. STAT News, Sept. 3, 2024
    2. AMA Chief Health Equity Officer Aletha Maybank, MD, MPH, said most groups with responsibility for a harmful algorithm are aware they have a problem to solve. “It’s now about the context of will—and then also, how will they do it?” (Publication subscription is required for full or unlimited access.)

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