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, amednews 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.

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"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.

The form does not require physicians to identify themselves by name, and asks only for limited information about the physician's specialty and for demographic and geographic data.

To ensure that only physicians will be able to register complaints, the AMA developed an AMA Internet ID that physicians using the form will be required to register for and use.

The American Assn. of Health Plans did not respond to AMNews' request for an interview.