Amid Continued COVID-19 Strain on Health Care, AMA Unveils Recovery Plan for America’s Physicians

CHICAGO, June 10, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — In a speech to physician and medical student leaders from across the country, American Medical Association President Gerald E. Harmon, M.D., today will unveil the AMA Recovery Plan for America’s Physicians, an ambitious roadmap to renewing our country’s commitment to physicians – and ensuring their needs are met – so patients can receive the high-quality care they deserve. Envisioned and built against the backdrop of COVID-19 challenges that stretched our health care system to the brink, including increased physician burnout, unabated and onerous prior authorization requirements, and no permanent fix to ensure telehealth coverage for patients, the Recovery Plan for America’s Physicians focuses on five key goals to  re-build health care so that it works better for physicians and all those they serve:

• Supporting telehealth to maintain coverage and payment;
• Reforming Medicare payment to promote thriving physician practices and innovation;
• Stopping Scope Creep that threatens patient safety;
• Fixing prior authorization to reduce the burden on practices and minimize care delays for patients; and
• Reducing physician burnout and address the stigma around mental health.

“America’s doctors are a precious, and irreplaceable, resource. Physician shortages, already projected to be severe before COVID, have almost become a public health emergency. If we aren’t successful with this Recovery Plan, it’ll be even more challenging to bring talented young people into medicine and fill that expected shortage,” Dr. Harmon said in prepared remarks. “Our Recovery Plan is ambitious. But it is doable. And the AMA is here to be our unified voice to lawmakers and those in positions of power. The Recovery Plan is how we move forward. By prioritizing and meeting the needs of physicians, we also improve patient care. We’re all better off when doctors can focus on medicine.”

The AMA was the physician’s powerful ally throughout the past two years of the pandemic – securing billions in relief to protect physician practices, advancing telehealth, enabling investments in therapeutics and vaccines to end the pandemic, standing up for equity, and advocating for science.

Additional details on the AMA Recovery Plan for America’s Physicians can be found at www.ama-assn.org/recovery. A video highlighting the Recovery Plan is also available by clicking here.

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Editor’s Note: The full text of Dr. Harmon’s speech, as prepared for delivery, is available here.