Aren't you glad you support the AMA?

[Guest guest]

from  Weeks' Integrator Blog

 

AMA's $70-million CPT royalty reported, attacked as subsidy for subjugating other disciplinesA recent report in the Integrator revealed that the political work of the American Medical Association (AMA) is subsidized to the tune of roughly $70-million each year through royalties from its ownership of Current Procedural Technology codes (CPT). Providers from all disciplines who accept 3rd party payment effectively pay into this AMA fund, despite the fact that the AMA opposes the advances of other disciplines, especially as independent practitioners. The Integrator report was prompted by concerns of integrative nursing leader Jo Kreitzer, RN, PhD on learning that the AMA had immediately opposed the independent practice for nurses recommended in the long-awaited October 5, 2010 Institute of Medicine (IOM) report entitled The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health. A multidisciplinary IOM team presented the vision of a future in which nurses, without MD supervision, will provide a significant portion of the nation's primary care. Nursing supporters welcomed the study as opening a " golden age of nursing. " The AMA immediately opposed this core recommendation.

  The IOM report on nursing, opposed by the AMAThe AMA position continues that of the 2006-present AMA Scope of Practice Partnership (SOPP) campaign through which the AMA supports opposition to scope expansions of other professions, including chiropractic doctors, midwives (nurse and direct-entry), psychologists, naturopathic physicians, optometrists, acupuncture and Oriental medicine practitioners as well as advance practice nurses. The AMA also opposes the anti-discrimination portion (Section 2706) of the Obama reform law. The AMA's control of the CPT also gives this guild the right to keep other disciplines from developing proper codes for their field. In addition, the AMA's CPT ownership gives the guild a special relationship to the US government relative to payment policy.

Comment: It is an astonishing confrontation with the past to imagine that such power was ever conferred on a single guild. The necessary transformation of US healthcare is toward diversity, multidisciplinary practice, collaboration, team-care, and respect for the skills of all parties. The movement is away from the still current MD-centric, patriarchal, top-down, father-knows-best world of Dr. Kildare. The response to the Integrator article has been, bluntly put, that enough is enough. (See 18 Views: Forum on the AMA's $70-million CPT Warchest Includes Calls for Action to End the Subsidy.) Says integrative nurse Kreitzer: " Let's end it.

A. Simpson, DC DABCOMedical Director, Vice PresidentThe CHP Group6600 SW 105th Ave, Suite 115Beaverton, OR  97008503-619-2041 O503-367-0872 C503-644-0442 F