May 2000 • Volume 6 • Number 5
AAFP asks Congress to protect patient rights
'Who do you want caring for your family -- an accountant or a physician?'
Stethoscope or calculator: That's the choice family physicians pose to Congress at a news conference on Capitol Hill. The banner proclaims, "It's time to protect patients!"Forty-three family physicians defended patient rights last month on Capitol Hill. The FPs urged a House-Senate conference committee to save key elements in conflicting managed care bills.
"Here's what we'll show the managed care conferees," said AAFP President Bruce Bagley, M.D., of Albany, N.Y., as he brandished a calculator and a stethoscope at an April 10 news conference. "We'll ask the conferees, 'Who do you want caring for your family -- an accountant or a physician?'"
The family physicians and 10 others -- including medical students and representatives of AAFP chapters and the Organizations of Academic Family Medicine -- "hit the Hill" April 10-11. They delivered calculators and stethoscopes to the 33 members of the managed care conference committee. The FPs and others also met with their own lawmakers to seek a law supporting:
- external review processes to appeal HMO decisions;
- patients' right to sue HMOs if necessary care is not allowed;
- the right of physicians to determine medical necessity instead of limiting care to treatments dictated by bottom-line-oriented HMOs; and
- the application of the law to all health plans, not just (as the Senate voted) those under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.
Rep. Dennis Moore, D-Kan., who represents the district where the AAFP headquarters is located, told reporters, "These physicians want to be able to do the right thing for their patients, and this Congress must make sure the law allows them to do so."
Christine Petty, M.D., of Rockford, Ill., said managed care has reduced health care costs. "Man-aged care is not all bad," she said. "For some, HMOs provide care they otherwise couldn't afford."
However, Petty and other FPs described hoops they have not always been able to jump through to get patients' care covered -- hoops that could be wiped out by strong legislation.
Mary Frank, M.D., of Rohnert Park, Calif., chair of the AAFP Commission on Legislation and Governmental Affairs, wrapped up the news conference. "My state has one of the largest managed care systems in the nation. Every day I am forced to choose whether to use a stethoscope or a calculator to treat my patients," she said. "I am a physician. I use my stethoscope."
FP Report is published by the AAFP News Department.
Copyright © 2000 by American Academy of Family Physicians.
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