In an address during Saturday’s opening session of the 2014 AMA Interim Meeting, AMA President Robert M. Wah, MD, told physicians how the AMA is anticipating problems and working on solutions to give doctors nationwide a new hope in practicing medicine.
Dr. Wah gave examples of how the AMA and physicians across the country have led important changes to make it easier and more satisfying to practice medicine and serve the nation’s patients, including:
- Striving to calm the “tsunami” of regulatory penalties physicians will face over the next decade by urging the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT to make the meaningful use, Physician Quality Reporting System and Value-Based Modifier programs more simple and streamlined.
- Advocating for widespread adoption of telemedicine, including expanding coverage and payment and lifting geographic restrictions.
- Achieving a framework to repeal and replace Medicare’s sustainable growth rate formula with bipartisan and bicameral support, and continuing to work with Congress and other medical societies toward repeal. Read full coverage of this effort at AMA Wire®.
“Recognizing potential problems is the first step toward overcoming them,” Dr. Wah said. “We’ve taken that step … with positive action on behalf of our physicians and our patients.”
He also discussed problems with electronic health records (EHR) and how the AMA is working to solve those problems, outlined in a new framework developed by the AMA and an external advisory committee of practicing physicians and health IT experts, researchers and executives.
”We cannot let the technology rule us,” he said. “We must rule the technology. … We can’t rely on it solely. We need to continue to use our own senses, training and clinical acumen.”
The AMA is working with EHR vendors and urging policymakers to create institutional health IT policies. The association also is partnering with researchers to better understand EHR usability.
