This article appears in the May 2013 issue of Managed Care Contracting and Reimbursement Advisor.
The American College of Physicians (ACP) is calling for a significant change to how healthcare is provided in the United States, particularly with regard to what it says are barriers to a productive relationship between patients and physicians.
"Continued improvement in the healthcare system to expand coverage and reduce unnecessary costs is imperative," said ACP President David L. Bronson, MD, FACP, speaking in Washington, D.C., at the group's annual State of the Nation's Health Care briefing. "Such efforts will not succeed in ensuring patient access to high-quality medical care if the current assault on the patient-physician relationship continues unabated."
Bronson noted that in some ways it is the best of times for U.S. healthcare, because the Affordable Care Act will soon make affordable coverage available to nearly all legal U.S. residents-for the first time in history-accompanied by a record slowdown in healthcare cost increases.
But he also warned of vulnerable patients being left behind in states that refuse to cover their poor under Medicaid; the threat to public health and access if across-the-board budget cuts (sequestration) continue; the continued obstacles to high-quality care created by Medicare's flawed SGR formula; and the unacceptable toll of deaths and injuries from firearms.
A growing shortage of primary care physicians for adults will increase costs and reduce access, he says. And the ACP president noted that many physicians report that it is the worst of times when it comes to intrusions on the hallowed patient-physician relationship.
ACP's two-pronged plan includes specific and achievable proposals to continue to advance the progress being made in expanding affordable coverage, lowering costs, recruiting and retaining primary care physicians, and reforming physician payment systems.
National leaders must reduce barriers to the patient-physician relationship, which will help accomplish the only genuine purpose of health reform, putting the interests of patients first, says Bob Doherty, ACP's senior vice president of governmental affairs and public policy.
"It simply is unacceptable that the political divisions in Washington have caused a recurring series of wholly unnecessary budget impasses that imperil the health and safety of the American people," Doherty says.
According to Bronson, the ACP says improving the lot of individual physicians is key to improving the healthcare system overall.
"Systemwide efforts to improve the healthcare system won't succeed on their own in improving access and quality if the physicians that the system is counting on to deliver are over-hassled, over-stressed, harried, hushed, and rushed," Bronson said. "ACP views necessary strategic health reform improvements and results not from a partisan or ideological perspective, but from the standpoint of what the evidence tells us will be the most effective course of action."
To that end, ACP is calling on Congress to involve physicians in an effort to improve quality reporting programs-and that will require reducing administrative barriers and improving bonus programs, ACP says.
ACP calls for elimination of SGR, better physician-patient relations
The American College of Physicians (ACP) recommends these steps to make the health system more effective: