The AMA has joined 120 state medical and specialty societies in endorsing a set of 10 principles that should guide Congress as they consider a much-needed overhaul to the nation’s healthcare payment system. These reforms must restore physician payment stability, increase patient access and preserve the practice of medicine.
What are the 8 principles of Medicare?
1. Ensure that the comprehensive basket of publicly insured health services includes high-value, evidence-based services and policies that reduce avoidable use and excess spending.
2. Make sure that the comprehensive basket of publicly insured health services covers all medically necessary services – including those for chronic diseases Medicare site and conditions such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and obesity.
3. Cover historically non-covered services that improve the care of all or a specific subset of patients, or for higher-risk and high-cost populations.
4. Provide incentives for physicians to experiment with risk-adjusted, blended models of payment that are tailored to the unique characteristics of their specialties and practice settings.
5. Provide timely, actionable data to physicians to help them identify, reduce and avoid unnecessary costs incurred by their practices.
6. Embrace the use of clinical data registries to measure the quality of care and promote improvements in outcomes.
7. Incentives for physicians to participate in innovative payment models, such as value-based payments and bundled reimbursements, must be aligned with their roles and responsibilities as providers of high-value, evidence-based care.
8. Support physicians in the delivery of high-value care for disadvantaged, high-risk and underserved populations.
