ACOFP Blog
For Family, By Family—ACOFP Blog
Enacted on December 27, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (CAA) is one of the largest bills ever passed by Congress—both in terms of funding and policy changes. Many provisions impacted family medicine, but this post highlights changes to one of the most important federal physician training programs—graduate medical education (GME)—and ACOFP’s work to further grow the primary care physician workforce.
Enacted on December 27, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (CAA) is one of the largest bills ever passed by Congress—both in terms of funding and policy changes. While there are numerous modifications impacting family medicine physicians, we are focusing on those impacting the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (PFS).
Tumultuous. Chaotic. Stressful. Unprecedented. No matter what word you use, 2020 was a year like no other, and family physicians were thrust into the middle of it, forced to adapt to support their communities—and each other. As 2020 comes to a close and we embark on a new year, ACOFP members share the biggest, hardest and most meaningful lessons they learned in 2020.
I look forward to the day when the number of female leaders at our medical schools and in our professional organizations will be too numerous to count and will no longer be a statistic to track—when our communities are represented by women equally in the legislature, when C-suites are filled with women and when all people, regardless of gender or race, are treated equitably based on skills and ability to contribute.
Patients are adapting to the new care delivery paradigm, and studies show very high telehealth satisfaction rates. Telehealth quickly has become a key feature in our health care delivery system, but current health care requirements are struggling to keep pace, particularly as they relate to state licensure.
Hierarchical Condition Category (HCC) is the risk-adjustment methodology for Medicare used by all Medicare Advantage plans. HCCs stratify patient risk and predict the costs for capitated payments. This is because patients with only minor health conditions are expected to have averaged medical costs in the near future. Those who have multiple chronic complex conditions are expected to have higher costs due to increased utilization.
I am a proud DO physician! I chose to go to an osteopathic school because of the tenets of osteopathy and the additional skills that I could provide my patients with OMT. As an osteopathic family physician, I will continue to serve my patients with the highest quality of care that I can without hesitation. I will continue to serve alongside both DO and MD physicians in ALL specialties and know that they will be providing excellent patient care because that’s just what we do!
I have only heard about the history of DOs fighting to maintain independent licensing in the state of California or being able to gain rounding privileges at traditional allopathic hospitals. I have never been denied the ability to provide holistic care to a patient because I have DO after my name instead of MD. That is why seeing such misinformation about our profession being spread through Twitter, Facebook and mainstream media seems both surreal and archaic at the same time.
This is the last installment in our three-part series covering physician-focused proposals in recent Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) proposed regulations. In this edition, we will discuss two proposals in the Calendar Year (CY) 2021 Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS) proposed rule. These proposals are relevant for physicians practicing in outpatient hospital settings who receive Medicare payments.
Through its CY 2021 Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) proposed rule, CMS proposes to implement several sweeping changes to the current framework and reimbursement for evaluation and management (E/M) CPT codes. These changes originally were finalized in the CY 2020 PFS final rule.
Throughout the PFS Proposed Rule series, ACOFP will highlight major proposals relevant for members and encourage individual physicians to submit comments to CMS. In this first blog post, we discuss the recent telehealth proposals in the PFS proposed rule.
The result of the sudden and dramatic interruption in normal care delivery is the creation of two significant gaps in the system: (1) the gaps in care created by cancelled and delayed visits and procedures, and (2) the financial shortfalls that will be difficult to fill without a change in strategy and day-to-day operations.
