AAEM Update and Call to Action: AMA board of trustees' recommendation mirrors AAEM efforts

To AAEM Members and Interested Colleagues:

The below notice is of major significance for practicing emergency physicians. The AMA's board of trustees will recommend to its House of Delegates at the upcoming June 18-22 meeting in Chicago that the AMA develop legislation prohibiting the corporate practice of medicine. We are asking you to contact anyone you know who has influence within the AMA to urge them to support the Board of Trustees report 19 that deals with the corporate practice of medicine (available at http://www.ama-assn.org/meetings/public/annual05/bot19a05.doc). This will be discussed in Reference committee B. In particular you are asked to contact members of your state AMA delegation; these persons can be identified by contacting the state medical society or through your county contacts. Describe to them the issues in our specialty, refer them to our web site for information. If asked, AAEM is primarily interested in banning corporations from employing physicians while the issue of employment by hospitals has valid arguments on both sides.

The significance of this recommendation should not be lost on the specialty of emergency medicine. For its entire existence, certain members of our specialty have labeled AAEM as a "radical" organization and derided and dismissed our efforts at reversing the corporate takeover of our field. The fact that the Board of the most prestigious medical association in the nation agrees with AAEM's mission should silence those critics once and for all. We hope this will also rally the practicing emergency physicians to join with us in these efforts. Together we can make further progress against the corporate forces as demonstrated in Minnesota and Mt. Diablo.

Regardless of whether you take action here, do read the AMA board report as it nicely outlines our issue and validates AAEM's efforts in this area.

Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report

Friday, June 10, 2005

American Medical Association Might Push for Legislation That Would Restrict Where Doctors Can Work

The American Medical Association's Board of Trustees will recommend to the group's House of Delegates that it consider pushing for state or federal legislation to forbid corporations and hospitals from directly employing physicians, the Miami Herald reports. In a formal report, the AMA trustees noted that the group has a long-standing belief that it is unprofessional for doctors to work for organizations in which they could gain from profits. However, rising costs and lower reimbursements have forced many doctors to abandon small-group practices and seek employment at companies or hospitals, a trend that has raised concern among AMA trustees about the "general erosion of physicians' independence," according to the Herald. Joseph Heyman, an AMA trustee, said, "[W]e don't want to have corporations or anybody using their concerns about finance to influence the relationship between a patient and a physician." He added, "We want the physicians to ... make the best choices for the patients." It is "not legislation that every state would necessarily have," Heyman said. However, executives at hospitals and physician employment firms said they do not instruct physicians on how to treat patients. "We believe our physicians are well qualified to take care of patients," Roger Medel -- CEO of Florida-based Pediatrix, which specializes in the treatment of newborns in hospitals -- said. Sterling Healthcare CEO Stephen Desnick, whose company focuses on emergency department care and employs 1,000 doctors, said, "They're trying to put a genie back in the bottle that has been out for a long time." He added that the AMA is "just not in line with what's happening." The proposal will be heard by the AMA House of Delegates at its annual meeting in Chicago this month (Dorschner, Miami Herald, 6/10).