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AMA REACTION TO PRESIDENT OBAMA’S ADDRESS ON HEALTH-SYSTEM REFORM (September 2009)

Physicians Agree that Medical Liability Reform is Needed  

“It is clear that the status quo is unacceptable. The AMA will continue to work for reform that makes the system work better for patients and physicians. We must seize this opportunity this year to achieve meaningful health reform for America’s patients and physicians.

“The President outlined three essential goals that are vital to reform efforts in this country, including: ensuring the current system remains secure and stable for those who already have insurance coverage and are happy with it; making insurance coverage affordable and accessible to those who need it; and reducing unnecessary costs and waste in the current system.

 “The AMA believes these core goals are ones that the majority of the American people can and do support, and we urge Congress to find common ground in achieving them.

“President Obama recognized what physicians have long known – that medical liability reform is needed to bring down the cost of health care, and he is directing the Department of Health and Human Services to take action now. Recognizing the critical need for medical liability reform is an important step toward reducing unnecessary costs. Everyday physicians across the country are forced to consider the broken medical liability system when making decisions, resulting in defensive medicine that adds to unnecessary health costs. We cannot ignore this problem if health-system reform is going to address the growing cost of care.

“Just yesterday, the AMA sent a letter to President Obama and Congress urging them to reach agreement on health reform that includes seven critical elements. Health coverage for all Americans, insurance market reforms that expand choice and eliminate denials for pre-existing conditions, assurance that medical decisions will remain between the patient and physician, medical liability reforms to reduce the cost of defensive medicine, and repeal of the broken Medicare physicians payment formula that threatens seniors’ access to care are among them.

“We have a historic opportunity to implement needed reforms to address shortcomings in the current system, while keeping in tact all that is working well. We will stay constructively engaged in the legislative process to ensure the final bill improves the health system for patients and the dedicated physicians who care for them.”

J. James Rohack, M.D.
President, American Medical Association



“Medical Student UB updates” (September 2009)

From the E-board

Once again, fresh faces have arrived at the medical school and, with their arrival, our e-board has been working extremely hard to recruit the new students to our vibrant chapter.  With a strong focus on increasing our organization’s membership, we were able to recruit over 80% of the first-year students into MSSNY and the AMA by the second day of their arrival, a percentage that was achieved by mid-school year in 2008.  As we all know, membership dues are a vital part of MSSNY, and they are extremely important for the success of our local chapter as well.  Our annual budget for our local AMA-MSS and MSSNY-MSS chapter depends heavily on our successful recruiting and membership.  Having achieved our recruitment goals, we can now shift our focus to meeting specific goals of bolstering our involvement at all of the Medical Society’s levels.  Two of the ways we plan to do this are elaborated below, by a few of our active members.  Additionally, there is a short list of some of our upcoming events, some of which are new, and some of which can now be deemed as “traditional AMA events” at UB.

Medical Students Work to Improve the Diet of Erie County

The University at Buffalo’s Medical Student Section has taken an interest in the effects of nutrition on the health of Erie County.  We have chosen to take two approaches, one of which focuses on change at a local level, and the other focusing on a larger scale.  Locally, we have been actively working with the medical school’s administration to increase practical nutrition education in the Medical School’s curriculum.  This will empower all future medical students graduating from UB with the information and tools to address our patient population’s diet more effectively in an effort to tackle the ubiquitous scourge of obesity and related metabolic syndromes.  We have also been working on a larger scale to gather and disseminate information in order to push for legislative change to make healthier, nutrition-dense (ND) foods more economically competitive with calorie-dense nutrition-poor (CDNP) foods.  Over the past generation, the cost of ND foods has risen more rapidly than the cost of CDNP foods.  This has resulted in many families eating more CDNP foods as a matter of short-term economic responsibility; individuals of lower income are suffering from obesity and related sequelae at higher rates than those with higher income, and presumably, better access to healthy foods.  Though the cause of this is multifactorial, one factor is certainly due to government’s farm and food policy.  This cost increase is, in turn, a factor in the rising rates of obesity.  By working to support innovative and pre-existing strategies to lower the cost of nutrition-dense foods, our efforts may save Erie County residents money on healthy food, as well as help them enjoy an increase in quality of life.  This will decrease preventable health care costs associated with greater consumption of these desirable foods.

--Daniel Donovan, MS II, VP of Membership, AMA-MSS Chapter at UB, dsd8@buffalo.edu

--Angela Sandell, MS I, Member, AMA-MSS Chapter at UB

MSSNY-MSS Health Care Reform Task Force Chair

Katie Brewer is a second year medical student at the University at Buffalo and was elected to serve as the Healthcare Reform Task Force Chair at the MSSNY Medical Student Section conference in February of 2009.  She also attended the national meeting in Chicago where she was able to participate in several seminars and learn how other states across the nation are reforming their health system policies and the role of the AMA organization.  With her position, she has joined the MSSNY Subcomittee on Health System Reform as a medical student representative under the direction of Dr. Robert Scher and took part in her first meeting on July 23, 2009.  The task of this subcommittee is to study the current obstacles for health coverage and then to develop, evaluate, and recommend proposals for achieving universal coverage.  The role of the subcommittee is to examine at least three models for universal healthcare coverage: one based on existing private and public health coverage mechanisms; a second that supports publicly sponsored and financed health coverage model; and a third that is a combination of both mechanisms.  The next conference call she will be participating in is scheduled for the end of August 2009. 

--Katie Brewer, MS II, Healthcare Reform Task Force Chair, MSSNY-MSS,  kbrewer@buffalo.edu

For any questions or comments for our SUNY at Buffalo Chapter of the AMA E-board or members, please contact: Rob Doiron, co-president, MS II, sunybuffaloama@gmail.com.

 



American Medical Association Advocacy report for July 31st, 2009 (July 2009)

House Energy and Commerce Committee mark up resumes.

Senate Finance Committee mark up postponed untill fall.  Physicians groups need to work Senate offices on Medicare physician payment issue.

The full PDF Version is available on on the Member Resources Section under Documents and Downloads.



CME COURSES ONLINE (July 2009)

The Medical Society of the County of Erie joins the Medical Society of the State of New York in presenting online Continuing Medical Education (CME) courses.   Current and future Enduring CME programs will be available from your computer in the office or at home.

The library of online CME courses can be found at http://medicaleducationny.com/

Two of the AMA Foundation’s educational resources—the health literacy toolkit and the patient safety monograph—have recently been re-approved to provide continuing medical education (CME) credit for physicians through May 2012. Both resources are designed as self-study CME activities, and physicians can earn a maximum of 2.5 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™ for each activity.  New instructions for claiming credit will be included with each purchase of these resources from the AMA Bookstore. If you already own hard copies, you can print out the new instructions.

View CME information for the health literacy toolkit.

View CME information for the patient safety monograph.

Visit the AMA Foundation Web site to download electronic versions of both resources at no charge.



ASSEMBLY PASSES LEGISLATION TO PERMIT NO-FAULT PAYMENT FOR EMERGENCY CARE TO INTOXICATED DRIVERS (May 2009)

Legislation (A.6843, Dinowitz) passed the Assembly this week that would assure that physicians are appropriately reimbursed for providing necessary emergency care to an intoxicated person in a general hospital. 

Identical legislation (S.3554, Breslin) has been referred to the Senate Insurance Committee. MSSNY supports this legislation, and urges physicians to contact their legislators to convey their support. The legislation would address an anomaly in the law well-known to physicians who provide emergency care. Under current “no-fault” insurance law, injuries to intoxicated motorists are not covered by their motor vehicle insurance. Yet, at the same time, the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) requires health care providers to provide emergency medical services to persons in need of such care. 

As a result, physicians often do not receive payment for providing this necessary, often life-saving, care. This bill, put forward by the New York State Insurance Department and the Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Service, seeks to address concerns articulated by Governor Paterson when he vetoed similar, but broader, legislation passed by the State Legislature in 2008. In his veto message on that bill Governor Paterson noted that, while the goals of the bill were sound, it was drafted so expansively that it would have required coverage far in excess of emergency care. The Governor's veto message instructed his staff and interested parties to “help enact a new bill that accomplishes the intended purpose... in a manner that will protect the interests of the health service providers, injured patients and the public.” The bill narrows the scope of the bill to necessary emergency care provided to an intoxicated driver in a general hospital. Please call your senator (518-455-2800) to urge their support for this measure, and a send a letter to your legislators from the MSSNY website by clicking here.