Policy Wins!
The Young Physician Section testified on 29 items of business at the June Special Meeting of the American Medical Association. The YPS was active in shaping the policy on many timely and important issues including youth suicide, discrimination, physician payment, and scope of practice.
Also at this meeting, the AMA Election Taskforce presented its recommendation. YPS supported these recommendations and the HOD adopted these recommendations as well. The goal of the new guidelines is to make elections more equitable for all interested members and keep the costs down for members running campaigns.
The AMA adopted almost all of the recommendations of the Council on Science and Public Health when addressing youth suicide. The AMA will develop and disseminate educational resources and tools for physicians, collaborate with federal agencies, state and specialty medical societies, schools, public health agencies, community organizations, and other stakeholders to enhance awareness of youth suicide. It also encourages continued research to understand risk factors and develop prevention strategies.
Several resolutions addressed discrimination for both physicians and our patients. The Young Physician Section continues to advocate for equity. We supported helping healthcare organizations develop policies to prevent and address racism and discrimination. The YPS supported addressing ways to overcome barriers for women and underrepresented minorities in medical leadership positions. Furthermore, we spoke in support of gaining access to telehealth for underrepresented populations.
The YPS authored a resolution that was adopted that asks the Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs to reconsider its guidance on pandemics, disaster response and preparedness in terms of the limits of professional duty of individual physicians, especially in light of the unique dangers posed to physicians, their families and colleagues during the COVID-19 global pandemic.
In our efforts to protect physician payments, the AMA adopted another YPS authored resolution that directs the AMA to advocate against efforts to eliminate “incident-to” billing for non-physician practitioners among private and public payors. This will work to combat the emerging practice of decreasing reimbursements to physicians who collaborate with APP for the services provided by those APPs.
Complete final HOD actions can be found on the AMA HOD website here:
Please reach out to our YPS leadership with any questions about the updates above, or with ideas for future policy initiatives!
