About this newsletter
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The ACP Advocate is an e-newsletter, edited by the College's Washington, DC governmental affairs division, created to
provide you, our members, with succinct news about public policy issues
affecting internal medicine and patient care. To learn more about ACP's
Advocacy, go to www.acponline.org/advocacy
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Welcome to
The ACP Advocate.
In this issue you’ll find
coverage of the latest news on the crisis in primary care. Recently the World
Health Organization, the Association of American Medical
Colleges, and
the New England Journal of
Medicine have
all released new information that
spotlights the importance of primary care and
the challenges that general internists and other primary care physicians are
currently facing. These pieces are all referenced in the article
Worsening Primary
Care Shortage Predicted. Click on the links above to
see the entire articles.
At a time when major health
care reform may be right around the corner, it is promising that so much
attention is being paid to the
benefits of primary care medicine. With the
promise of lowering
costs and increasing quality, primary care should be a major
part of
fixing our dysfunctional health care system.
Looking ahead to our next
issue on Dec. 19, we’ll be telling you about changes to the Medicare
program for
2009, and highlighting programs that may enable you to
increase your
reimbursement.
We’re getting some good
traction on my
new Advocacy blog, The ACP Advocate Blog by Bob
Doherty
. I hope you’ll check it out and join me in examining the most
provocative, ground-breaking and intriguing health policy discussions I come
across in my daily work.
Please send your feedback
and suggestions on this newsletter to: TheACPAdvocate@acponline.org.
Yours truly,
Bob
Doherty
Senior Vice
President
Governmental Affairs and Public
Policy
American College of
Physicians
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In the news
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Worsening Primary Care Shortage Predicted |
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Experts recommend work redesign and payment reforms |
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HealthDay News -- America's looming shortage of generalist physicians is destined to reach crisis proportions by 2025 if
nothing is done, experts are warning.
In a string of reports and commentaries, leaders in primary care and health policy have begun
fleshing out the problem and offering up potential fixes.
"There's no single step that will solve the problem, but I think it's
g... » Click to read the full article
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Health Professions Diversity Takes a Hit |
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Nebraska voters approve measure ending affirmative action |
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HealthDay News -- With the vast majority of the nation's attention being centered on the election of Barack Obama as the
44th U.S. President Nov. 4, some important statewide ballot referendums
might not have received the attention they merited -- especially in terms
of what they eventually might mean for practices and procedures beyond
state boundaries.
Such was the case in Nebraska and Colora...
» Click to read the full article
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AMA Adopts PCMH Joint Principles |
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Roles of Nurses, Payment
Methodologies and Comparative Effectiveness also Reviewed |
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The American Medical Association House
of Delegates voted at its Interim meeting in Nov. to join ACP and three
other members of organized medicine to adopt joint principles of the
patient-centered medical home (PCMH). The Joint Principles statem...
» Click to read the full article
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In focus
New ACP Paper on Primary Care
Literature
In mid-November, ACP released a policy paper that warns that primary care, the backbone of the nation's health
care system, is on the verge of collapse and documents the evidence on the value of primary care. How is a Shortage of Primary Care Physicians
Affecting the Quality and Cost of Medicare Care?, is an annotated
bibliography based on a literature review of more than 100 studies,
spanning 20 years of research. The paper shows that primary care provides patients with better outcomes at lower cost, and it highlights the urgency of the need to prevent shortages of primary care physicians. |
House Committee asks HHS to delay ICD-10
codes
On November 19th, Rep. Nydia Velazquez
(D-NY), chairwoman of the House Small Business Committee, wrote to the
Department of Health and Human Services to request that they delay
implementation of the new ICD-10-CM code set. The new code set, replacing the current ICD-9 codes, is scheduled to go into effect in 2011. In her
letter, Chairwoman Velazquez urged HHS to perform a thorough analysis of
the regulation. She stressed that the current timetable would place an
enormous burden on solo and small group physician practices.
ACP has
requested that HHS suspend plans to adopt the new codes.
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