AMA advocacy efforts

The American Medical Association is your powerful ally in patient care and unprecedented times require bold action. We are proud to share how we are fighting for you. Some of those advocacy initiatives form part of the AMA Recovery Plan for America’s Physicians, including:

• Reforming Medicare payment
• Fixing prior authorization
• Promoting physician-led care
• Reducing physician burnout
• Supporting telehealth

Since launching its five-part Recovery Plan for America’s Physicians last year, the American Medical Association has achieved significant wins in these—and other—areas critical to health care. Download the dashboard (PDF) for more details as we continue #FightingForDocs in 2023.

Leading the charge to reform Medicare and defending physicians against future cuts.

• Successfully urged Congress to introduce H.R. 2474 to apply an automatic inflation update to Medicare physician payments by tying the Medicare physician fee schedule to the Medicare Economic Index.
• Led an advocacy campaign joined by more than 150 other organizations that minimized the 8.5% in Medicare payment cuts originally slated for 2023.

Learn more

The AMA actively works to advance discussion and solutions on key issues in medicine. Learn about how you can take part in the fight to fix Medicare on behalf of your patients and practices at the AMA's Fix Medicare Now website and how the AMA is reforming Medicare payment nationally. 

Challenging insurance companies to eliminate care delays, patient harms and practice hassles.

• Convinced the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to right-size the prior authorization process imposed by Medicare Advantage plans on medical services and procedures, as demonstrated in a recent final rule.
• Working in partnership with state medical associations across the country to enact prior authorization reform using AMA model legislation, data, testimony and other resources. More than 30 states have introduced legislation in 2023 alone.

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The AMA actively works to advance discussion and solutions on key issues in medicine. Learn more about how the AMA is fixing prior authorization nationally.

Vigorously defending the practice of medicine against scope of practice expansions that threaten patient safety.

• Helped defeat legislation across the country that would have allowed:
  • Physician assistants to practice independently without physician oversight.
  • Pharmacists to prescribe medications.
  • Optometrists to perform surgery.
  • Scope of practice expansion for nurse practitioners and other APRNs.
• Leading AMA Scope of Practice Partnership, which has provided more than $3.5 million in grants since its inception to support state medical association and specialty society efforts.

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The AMA actively works to advance discussion and solutions on key issues in medicine. Learn more about how the AMA is fighting scope creep nationally.

Pushing for legislative and other solutions to support physicians, residents and medical students to seek confidential care for wellness, burnout, fatigue and depression.

• Advocated for and supported new laws and policies in Arizona, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Mississippi and Virginia that protect physicians who seek care for wellness and burnout and working to implement the Dr. Lorna Breen Health Care Provider Protection Act.
• Urging state medical boards, health systems, credentialing bodies and others to remove from their applications stigmatizing and potentially discriminatory questions that may deter physicians from seeking care—multiple health systems have changed their applications after consultations with AMA.

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The AMA actively works to advance discussion and solutions on key issues in medicine. Learn more about how the AMA is reducing physician burnout nationally.

Advocating for expanded telehealth policy, research, and resources to ensure physician practice sustainability and fair payment.

• Achieved passage of legislation to extend Medicare telehealth coverage, including audio-only and hospital-at-home services, through 2024.
• Supporting the Creating Opportunities Now for Necessary and Effective Care Technologies (CONNECT) for Health Act (S. 2016/H.R. 4189), bipartisan legislation which would expand coverage of telehealth services through Medicare and make permanent COVID-19 telehealth flexibilities.

Learn more

The AMA actively works to advance discussion and solutions on key issues in medicine. Learn more about how the AMA is supporting telehealth efforts nationally.

The AMA advocates at the federal and state levels on key health care issues impacting patients and physicians. Learn more about our efforts in public health, population care and health disparities and removing obstacles to care.

Public health

• Improving public health 
• Preventing firearm injuries and death

Population care and health disparities

• Fighting government interference in the practice of medicine
• Preserving access to care

Removing obstacles to care

• Addressing insurer issues
• Pursuing solutions to the physician workforce crisis

The AMA works to generate support for policies critical to the nation’s health care system—and we can’t do it without your help. Learn more about ways to get involved with AMA advocacy.