AMA to catalog doctors' woes on health plans

Physicians are asked to detail HMO hassles in a new online complaint form.

By Amy Snow Landa, AMNews staff. Dec. 10, 2001.

Washington -- In its latest effort to document abuses by the managed care industry, the AMA is asking physicians to describe the problems they encounter with health plans in a new complaint form on its Web site.

The online form lets any doctor in the United States submit complaints about health plans on a confidential basis. The AMA will compile the information in a database and use it as part of its advocacy efforts with state and federal lawmakers and regulators.

"We view the form as a move to document the frustrations that physicians and patients suffer as a result of day-to-day hassles with managed care," said Donald J. Palmisano, MD, secretary-treasurer of the AMA Board of Trustees. "We think this is an addendum to all of our previous efforts."

The AMA unveiled the complaint form a week after releasing the findings of a major study on the extent to which large national health insurers dominate markets in many areas.

The AMA hopes the complaint form will garner additional evidence of the need for a federal patients' bill of rights, physician antitrust relief, and greater scrutiny of health plan mergers and acquisitions.

The online form was launched as the result of a resolution adopted by the House of Delegates in June directing the AMA to establish an information clearinghouse for physicians' problems with managed care. [...]