The AMA helps sustain the viability of private practice: Key research & resources

In total, and including the practice owners and physician employees and independent contractors who worked for them, 54% of physicians worked in practices that were entirely owned by physicians in 2018.

• AMA's Practice Improvement Strategies.
• Tips for keeping your practice in business during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Helping private practices navigate non-essential care during COVID-19.

• AMA champions relief funding and policies that enable physicians to adjust to new administrative requirements during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• 97% of practices feel the financial sting of COVID-19, and the AMA fought hard to make sure that physicians in private practice received some of the federal funding in the CARES Act.
• The AMA has shaped more than 40 policies and secured 12 regulatory victories that have reduced documentation burdens.
• The AMA partnered with CMS on the first overhaul of E/M office visit codes in more than 25 years. Thanks to AMA input, CMS published its 2019 Physician Fee Schedule final rule, reducing duplicative physician documentation burdens (i.e. “note bloat”) for office visits.

• The AMA provides physicians with a variety of guides that support private practices during COVID-19 pandemic.
• To give physicians access to critical PPE supplies, the AMA partnered with Project N95 to reserve quality-certified PPE for AMA members.
• The AMA emphasizes the importance of caring for our caregivers during COVID-19.
• More than 50 award-winning burden relief tools on the AMA Ed Hub™, including:  
  • Improving Annual Prescription Renewals to Save Time education module to streamline documentation
  • EHR In-Basket Restructuring for Improved Efficiency STEPSForward™ education module
• Team Documentation STEPSForward™ education module
• Behavioral Health Integration STEPSForward™ education module
• The Patient Records Electronic Access Guide
• We debunk regulatory myths that drain physicians’ time. 

• The AMA conducts ongoing, in-depth research on how regulatory burdens affect physician professional satisfaction and payment.
• AMA has two free surveys to help private practices and health care organizations monitor the impact COVID-19 has on their workforce.
• In partnership with other organizations, the AMA pursues specific areas in research such as career satisfaction among physician moms and doctors’ fears during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• The AMA’s bi-yearly Physician Practice Benchmark survey provides insights on payment methodologies and practice arrangements, which helps drive our advocacy work on your behalf.
• AMA Benchmark Surveys have been conducted in every even year between 2012 and 2018. Policy Research Perspective reports, based on the surveys, provide detailed analyses of the data.
• To quantify the negative impact of health plans’ prior authorization (PA) requirements on both patients and physician practices, the AMA conducts an annual survey of 1,000 practice physicians. The survey data also illustrate the lack of progress made by health plans on reducing PA burdens and implementing the reforms agreed to in the 2018 Consensus Statement on Improving the Prior Authorization Process.
• AMA set out in 2019 to better understand the specific factors influencing behavioral health integration (BHI) into practices to inform the AMA’s support for development of potential solutions that address persistent disparities in access to and quality of care.
• AMA conducts research to better understand the attributes of high performing small physician-owned practices so lessons learned can be translated into tools and resources.