AAFP Board Chair Spotlights Breadth of Family Medicine Training in Letters to CMS

In a recent letter to CMS Administrator Donald Berwick, M.D. (2-page PDF; About PDFs), AAFP Board Chair Lori Heim, M.D., of Vass, N.C., commended the agency for re-evaluating its stance on Medicare signature requirements and for "acknowledging that the policy caused an inconvenient and disruptive administrative burden on physicians."

CMS adopted the signature requirements as part of the final 2011 Medicare physician fee schedule. The rule required the signature of a physician or a qualified nonphysician signature on "requisitions," as opposed to orders, for clinical diagnosis laboratory tests. CMS recently proposed another rule that would retract that requirement.

Last year, the Academy opposed implementation of the signature policy (38-page PDF; About PDFs), arguing that it would create "an excessive burden" for physicians. In her recent letter to Berwick on the topic, Heim said, "Through publication of this proposed rule, CMS is taking the first of, hopefully, many steps that acknowledge the need to modify or repeal burdensome regulations."