Disclaimer: As almost all readers know I am currently the Chair of the ACP Board of Regents. I have participated in a variety of medical organizations during my career. I pay dues to the AMA.
Many physicians refuse to join medical organizations. They complain (often commenting on this blog) that the organizations are part of the problem. They pick a particular issue that they dislike and use that as an excuse to blame an organization for not representing them.
I can only speak precisely for myself, but I do believe I speak for most Board members. In this post I will only speak to the ACP, but believe the comments likely pertain to other organizations.
As a Board member for 7 years I do not personally agree with every line of every policy. We work as a compromise organization. We advocate for the profession, listen to all the opinions and try to find the sweet spot of compromise.
The thing we can do best is to advocate for important issues. Almost all physicians understood the problems with the SGR. Year after year congress had to rescue physicians from a Medicare pay cut. Since before I joined the ACP Board of Regents, ACP has worked hard to find a solution to this problem. Through endless work with a consortium of other medical organizations we almost had a solution last year.
We likely we not have had this important bill without organized medicine. We need not agree with every policy to understand the value of the size of these organizations. Our members sent emails and made phone calls to encourage the passage of this bill. Other organizations in the consortium did the same. Our patients will benefit from this passage. This bill stabilizes physicians’ decisions to accept Medicare patients.
The bill is not perfect. You can read this NY Times article to understand the concern about quality payments – Doctors See Benefits and Risks in Medicare Changes . Addressing the definition of quality will be a new campaign.
This new problem is much more tractable than the SGR problem.
For those who always blame organized medicine for problems, I hope you will rethink what these organization try to do. We try very hard to advocate for better patient care. We are working hard to point out the harm of our current administrative burdens. We are working to get electronic records more physician (and therefore patient) friendly.
Organized medicine moves slowly, but persistently to try to improve patient care. I am proud to be involved.
