AMA's advocacy agenda: Helping doctors help patients

This year, as it does every year, the American Medical Association will speak loudly on behalf of America's physicians, and their patients, on issues from Medicare payment reform to improving patient safety.

In the physician surveys and roundtables that helped form the AMA's recently released 2007 advocacy agenda, one message was abundantly clear: The AMA, as the nation's advocate for physicians and their patients, must be the voice to put pressure on lawmakers and presidential candidates to explain how they plan to get health coverage to the burgeoning number of uninsured. That's 46.6 million Americans, or 15.9% of the population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The advocacy agenda is an important tool to get the message across to those in power that patients desperately need help and that the health care system must change. The advocacy agenda also tells patients that their physicians are there to help them. And when lawmakers take on the issue, the AMA is ready, and has been for years, with a long-term plan for covering the uninsured through the use of market reforms and individual tax credits allowing patients to select and own health insurance.

Despite the enormity of this problem, there are other issues that demand attention and solutions. The AMA advocacy agenda is all about listening to physicians' voices on the issues, then speaking as one voice to affect legislative and social change. This year's advocacy agenda lays out its priorities in three major ways: To reform America's health system, to improve the health of the public and patients, and to help physicians succeed in their profession.

Covering the uninsured is not the only issue the AMA will advocate for when seeking changes in the health care system. Also in that category is reforming the Medicare physician payment system to protect access to health care for the nation's growing number of seniors. The AMA will press Congress to correct major weaknesses in the structure of the Medicare program and enact stable, adequate annual payment updates.

Work will continue on medical liability reform, including placing limits on noneconomic damages and protecting against efforts to overturn effective reforms enacted at the state level.

The AMA will improve the health of the public and patients through multiple efforts. For one, the AMA will work to ensure that physicians -- and not others -- set quality standards for the medical profession, an issue in light of various pay-for-performance programs under way by health plans. The AMA has convened a physician consortium that has begun to establish evidence-based measures of quality.

The AMA seeks to improve patient safety in various ways, including support of the implementation of a new federal law designed to prevent adverse events. The AMA will use its advocacy and educational tools to promote healthier lifestyles, close gaps in health care for minority patients, and help prepare for and respond to disasters and other public health emergencies.

And to help physicians succeed in their profession, the AMA will aid doctors in providing the best possible care for patients. This includes ensuring that doctors can transition smoothly to electronic medical records when they are ready, rather than being forced by some outside mandate. The AMA will continue to work to make transactions with plans easier and more equitable.

The AMA will help physicians in navigating their careers. This includes offering tools and addressing issues that are key to managing a practice, financing medical school debt and surviving residency.

The AMA advocacy agenda is an ambitious course for improving the lives of physicians and their patients. But the issues it addresses strike at the heart of every practice. Whether it is coverage for the uninsured, or any of the other issues laid out in the agenda, the AMA has received its orders from America's physicians to ensure that they and their patients have a safer and healthier future.