AMA, state societies back Patients First Act

WASHINGTON - The American Medical Association (AMA) and state medical societies representing physicians from all 50 states and the District of Columbia today expressed strong support (PDF) for the bipartisan Patients First Act (H.R. 9693), legislation that would make long-term structural reforms to Medicare physician payment and help protect patients' access to care.

"For decades, physicians have been asked to do more with a Medicare payment system that does not keep pace with the cost of providing care," said AMA President Willie Underwood III, MD, MSc, MPH. "Over the course of time, what began as a physician payment challenge transformed into a significant patient access problem. When practices cannot sustain themselves, patients have a harder time finding and keeping the physicians they need. The unified support for this bill across all 50 states and DC is a testament to the critical need to fix our broken system."

Sent to Reps. John Joyce, MD, Greg Murphy, MD, and Kim Schrier, MD, the AMA-led letter commended their bipartisan leadership and says the legislation would replace the annual cycle of Medicare payment cuts and temporary patches with a system that is more stable, predictable, and reflective of the real costs of delivering care.

The letter states that, when adjusted for inflation in practice costs, Medicare physician payment has fallen by 33 percent since 2001-an unsustainable trajectory that is undermining physician practices and putting patient access to care at risk. Physicians remain the only Medicare provider type without an annual payment update tied to inflation, leaving them to absorb rising practice costs year after year. This chronic underpayment is hitting small, rural, and independent practices especially hard, forcing many to consolidate, scale back services, or limit the number of Medicare patients they can treat.

The Patients First Act would address those challenges through four core reforms long sought by organized medicine: permanent inflation-based payment updates tied to the Medicare Economic Index, modernization of budget neutrality policies, a simpler clinician-driven quality program to replace the current Merit-based Incentive Payment System, and continued meaningful incentives for participation in alternative payment models.

The AMA and the undersigned state medical societies urged lawmakers to join as cosponsors and advance the legislation through the legislative process. Access FixMedicareNow.org to learn more about the physician Medicare payment issue and take action to ensure continued patient access to high-quality care.