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Congress gets a prescription for high-performance Medicare program
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This Week's News
Congress gets a prescription for high-performance Medicare program
A letter the AMA and more than 100 medical societies sent Monday to key members of Congress outlines the principles and core elements the organizations say are essential for a transition to a high-performing Medicare program.
The letter calls on Congress to repeal the flawed Medicare physician payment formula and build a payment system that allows physicians to spearhead innovations in care delivery. Such a system should reward physicians for improving the quality of patient care and lowering the growth rate of health care costs, the organizations said.
"The AMA has consistently urged Congress to eliminate the broken Medicare physician payment formula so we can begin to transition to new payment and delivery innovations that improve patient care," AMA President Jeremy A. Lazarus, MD, said in a news release. "We offer principles that should be the foundation of a new system that supports physicians in improving the delivery of care with payment options that benefit patients, physicians and the Medicare program."
These principles were sent to the chairs and ranking members of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, the U.S. House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee, and the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee.
