In an address during Saturday’s opening session of the 2015 AMA Annual Meeting, AMA President Robert M. Wah, MD, congratulated physicians on undertaking numerous challenges that, once solved, will strengthen the physician-patient relationship and make the practice of medicine better.
The most important victory for physicians over the past year was undoubtedly the elimination of Medicare’s sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula, a perennial threat of steep payment cuts and instability.
“Working together, we finally ended an era of uncertainty for Medicare patients and their physicians and opened new avenues to provide better care at a lower cost,” he said. “It wasn’t a ‘doc fix’ …. It was Medicare that needed fixing—not doctors.”
Physicians tackled many other issues this year, too, including:
- Calming the “tsunami” of regulatory penalties physicians will face over the next decade, specifically meaningful use. “Harness technology to improve care—don’t let it harness us,” Dr. Wah said. “The same goes for those who write regulations. Learn from mistakes and act accordingly. If something isn’t working, fix it.”
- Shaping regulations such as the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), or as Dr. Wah called it, “the SGR on steroids.” The AMA joined more than 500 organizations to call on Congress to repeal the IPAB, and a bill to do so has been approved by the U.S. House of Representatives’ Ways and Means Committee.
- Improving outcomes around chronic diseases. The recent launch of the Prevent Diabetes STAT: Screen, Test, Act–Today™ initiative between the AMA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is a step in this direction.
- Accelerating change in medical education. By listening to students’ interests and needs, harnessing technology and working on innovative ideas, the AMA and medical schools in its learning consortium are transforming medical education for the first time in a century.
"The challenge of changes swirls all around us,” he said. “We need to see it as an opportunity to maximize those opportunities. It will take hard work, imagination and creativity.”
