November 2001 • POST-ASSEMBLY EDITION
Delegates take up patient care issues
Delegates and others attending the Congress of Delegates voiced their opinions on several resolutions dealing with aspects of patient care. Here's a sampling of what was decided:
Medicare regulations and teaching. Delegates stopped just shy of taking the U.S. Congress to task over legislative restrictions involving residents' and medical students' interaction with Medicare patients. At issue was the question of reimbursement for medical preceptors supervising delivery of care by residents and students. Discussion participants cited concerns that, if pressed too hard on the issue, Congress would rescind the primary care training supervision exception now included in Medicare regulations.
The delegates did, however, charge AAFP with studying the effects of those regulations on residents, students and their preceptors.
As the system stands now, said Student Member Constituency alternate delegate Marc Carey of Portland, Ore., "I'm actually a hindrance to my preceptors."
The Academy will also offer advice and consultation to federal agencies on matters affecting the teaching of residents and students in family medicine.
Colonoscopy privileges. Not surprisingly, the issue of privileging drew extensive and impassioned testimony during reference committee hearings. Bypassing the quagmire of setting what many participants termed arbitrary numeric determinants of privileging eligibility, delegates directed AAFP to develop a strategy to ensure that "family physicians with training, experience and competency obtain privileges in colonoscopy and colonoscopic polypectomies."
Cultural and linguistic proficiency. Cultural competency proved to be a less contentious issue, with delegates directing the Academy to support implementation of cultural proficiency training in family medicine residency curricula.
FP Report is published by the AAFP News Department.
Copyright © 2001 by American Academy of Family Physicians.
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