AMA Offers Guidance on Physician Employment

Urged the removal of barriers to generic medications. The AMA board adopted a policy to end the practice of "pay for delay" in prescription medicine. That refers to the practice of brand prescription drug manufacturers paying generic drug manufacturers for not creating generic versions of their medications.

Sought federal legislation or regulatory changes to stop Medicare and Medicaid from decertifying physicians due to unpaid student loan debt. The current practice of decertifying physicians with outstanding loan debt stops them from accepting Medicare and Medicaid patients and undermines their ability to repay the student loans, AMA officials say.

Recognized "next-generation" genomic sequencing in clinical applications "for dramatically reduced costs, but said that "implementation challenges must be addressed" to realize the potential of the technologies for improved outcomes.

Advocated for encouraging birth-year based screening practices for Hepatitis C in line with recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations. About 3.2 million Americans are infected with Hepatitis C virus, according to the AMA, but more than half are unaware they have the virus, the CDC estimates.