What’s the news: The AMA has spoken out on behalf of the influential U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), expressing “deep concern” as a flurry of news reports indicate that all 16 of its expert volunteer members may be dismissed imminently.
The “USPSTF plays a critical, nonpartisan role in guiding physicians’ efforts to prevent disease and improve the health of patients by helping to ensure access to evidence-based clinical preventive services. As such, we urge you to retain the previously appointed members of the USPSTF and commit to the longstanding process of regular meetings to ensure their important work can continue without interruption,” says an AMA letter sent July 27 to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose office postponed the task force’s July meeting.
In June, the AMA expressed similar concern about the secretary’s move to dismiss all 17 members of another vital body, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
Why it’s important: The task force’s recommendations have a widespread impact on patients across the nation, the AMA’s letter explains.
“By law, insurers must cover USPSTF-recommended services without cost sharing,” wrote AMA CEO and Executive Vice President John J. Whyte, MD, MPH. “This means that patients have access to services such as screenings for colon, breast and lung cancer; screenings for anxiety and depression in children; and screenings and preventive services for cardiovascular disease. Access to these services without cost sharing plays a critical role in keeping patients healthy and reducing the burdens of disease.”
“The USPSTF has long played an essential role in making evidence-based recommendations for clinical prevention of disease,” Dr. Whyte wrote in the AMA letter.
“USPSTF members have been selected through an open, public nomination process and are nationally recognized experts in primary care, prevention and evidence-based medicine. They serve on a volunteer basis, dedicating their time to help reduce disease and improve the health of all Americans,” Dr. Whyte wrote. The USPSTF, he added, has “a mission well-aligned” with the secretary’s “Make America Healthy Again” initiative.
The task force works to improve the health of the nation by making evidence-based recommendations about clinical preventive services such as screenings, counseling services and preventive medication. Its members come from the fields of preventive medicine and primary care, including internal medicine, family medicine, pediatrics, behavioral health, obstetrics and gynecology, and nursing. The USPSTF library includes 90 preventive-service recommendation statements.
Learn more: The AMA has filed several amicus briefs in recent years explaining the importance of no cost preventive care under the ACA. As the AMA and more than two dozen other physician, patient and other health care groups recently told the U.S. Supreme Court, the Affordable Care Act’s preventive-care mandate and the USPSTF’s recommendations have saved lives and should continue to do so.
It has been estimated that about 100 million privately insured Americans access USPSTF-recommended services without paying for them out of pocket. The AMA serves as a partner to the task force helping to disseminate the work of the USPSTF to physicians so they remain up to date on the recommendations and can put them into practice. The USPSTF’s recommendation statements are regularly published in JAMA® and also are available through the AMA Ed Hub™.
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