AAFP 2011 Congress of Delegates Report

September 11-14, 2011 - Submitted by Jennifer Leiser MD

I had the privilege of representing Utah family physicians as your delegate to the AAFP Congress of Delegates in Orlando Florida. We met in the land of Mickey Mouse, but there was no fooling around at the Congress.

Our delegation included the following UAFP representatives:

• Karen Radley MD, Price, Delegate
• Jennifer Leiser MD, Salt Lake City, Delegate
• Amy Geroso MD, Salt Lake City, Alternate Delegate
• Sarah Woolsey MD, Salt Lake City, Alternate Delegate (not pictured below)
• Lisa Saturnino MD, Park City, Chapter President
• Wayne Jones, UAFP executive director

L to R: Amy Geroso MD, Karen Radley MD, Jennifer Leiser MD, Wayne Jones, Lisa Saturnino MD

The annual gathering of our AAFP leadership is always inspirational. Family physicians from around the country come to represent their chapters. The diversity of our specialty encompasses practice type, age, gender, race, culture and geography. We truly represent the face of America. Out of this broad representation we draw a group of excellent physician leaders.

AAFP leadership continues to advocate for family physicians at the national level. We once again face the looming threat of a new SGR “fix” that would reduce Medicare payments by 29%. AAFP advocacy is focused on getting Congress to come up with a permanent fix that replaces the SGR with an alternative that does not threaten the existence of family medicine practices that serve Medicare patients. If this cannot be achieved, AAFP will push Congress to implement a longer term delay of payment cuts.

A You-Tube video can be viewed by Clicking Here or view now

A more arcane issue concerns the role of the RUC in maintaining artificially low payment levels to family physicians. Have you heard of the RUC? I had not until a couple years ago. The Relative Value Scale Update Committee is a committee of the AMA that advises CMS on RVU valuations for medical care. This subspecialist dominated group has only one family medicine representative. The RUC methodology ensures systematic devaluation of primary care services and overvaluation of procedural services in Medicare payments. Family physician outrage over this situation is growing. The AAFP board of directors has formed a new task force to address this issue. For details about the work of the task force, please go to http://www.aafp.org/online/en/home/publications/news/news-now/government-medicine/20110823taskforcemeets.html

AAFP has passed a milestone in achieving membership of over 100,000, making it the third largest physician association in the nation. A $100 contribution to our FamMedPac  from each of family doctor would raise $10 million to support AAFP lobbying on our behalf in Washington. Please support FamMedPac. http://www.aafp.org/online/en/home/policy/fammedpac.html

For a full report of the actions of the Congress of Delegates, please visit http://www.aafp.org/online/en/home/aboutus/theaafp/congress.html

We know that family medicine holds the key to the future of our health care system. We are the only specialty that can reduce the cost of the health care system by doing what we already know how to do. AAFP is well positioned to carry that message to Congress and the public. One of the candidates for AAFP Board of Directors quoted Walt Disney in a speech:  “It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.”