AAFP Was Your Bold Champion in 2008

No doubt about it: 2008 was a year we all couldn't wait to be over. But before we leave 2008 in the dust, I'd like to revisit it for a minute. In the midst of this last year's chaos and uncertainty, the AAFP stuck to its plan to be your bold champion. The Academy focused its advocacy efforts on the issues most critical to our specialty's survival -- especially health system reform based on primary care -- because as family physicians, we simply cannot thrive and take good care of our patients unless the health care system is transformed to respect and value what we do and to pay us appropriately for doing it.

As the president of the AAFP for most of 2008, I served as the Academy's chief spokesperson in many of our advocacy activities. In my opinion, the most important thing we did for members was to raise the level of awareness regarding the importance of family medicine, primary care and the patient-centered medical home.

Key stakeholders in health care reform increasingly are recognizing the critical role family physicians play in health care. We have succeeded in raising this awareness level in part because of FamMedPAC, which has the potential to become the nation's largest medical political action committee thanks to contributions from members like you.

In 2008, FamMedPAC gave family physicians access to key policymakers at a level we've never had before. We were present at the national political conventions (Members Only) for the first time, talking about family medicine and the medical home with both government and private-sector leaders. After the election, the AAFP started working closely with the Obama transition team on solutions to health care's problems. President-elect Obama himself has talked about the need for primary care.

After the new Congress convenes this month, we'll have the ear of more senators and representatives than ever before. In 2008, 90 percent of the candidates to whom FamMedPAC contributed were elected. Already, key players in Congress have been talking about the importance of primary care, including Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chair of the Senate Finance Committee, and Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., chair of the Health Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee.

The AAFP's advocacy efforts also paid dividends at the AMA House of Delegates meeting last fall. With only a few exceptions, our subspecialty colleagues in the AMA came together with primary care to support the Joint Principles of the Patient-Centered Medical Home, which were developed by the AAFP and other primary care groups. This means that our definition of the medical home will be the one that counts in health policy discussions, because it's the one that has organized medicine behind it.

All of these 2008 successes portend well for our future, but we also had to stop something with a more immediate impact on you -- the 10.6 percent Medicare pay cut scheduled for July 2008 and a smaller cut scheduled for 2009.

We lobbied intensely for the better part of the year, even launching a campaign to get patients involved. We ultimately prevailed, blocking both cuts and getting a small pay increase for 2009, thanks to the help of thousands of AAFP members who flooded congressional offices with calls and e-mails. Of course, this was just a Band-Aid to stop the hemorrhaging until we get a better payment system as part of systemic health care reform.

Other AAFP activities in 2008 supported our efforts for reform. For example, the Academy endorsed the National Committee for Quality Assurance's Physician Practice Connections -- Patient-Centered Medical Home program, which gives family physicians a process for having their practices designated as medical homes.

TransforMED, the AAFP's limited liability company, launched its Medical Home Implementation Quotient program, enabling members to measure the progress of their practices toward becoming medical homes. TransforMED subsequently unveiled a new line of products and services designed to help primary care physicians incorporate the medical home model into their practices.

Even the Academy's Americans in Motion, or AIM, program got into the act, releasing a guide to conducting and getting paid for group visits, which are used in medical homes.

In addition, the Academy's public outreach activities in 2008 supported our push for health care reform based on primary care. For instance, AAFP reached out to American women with a media campaign to help them understand the value of family medicine and the medical home. The campaign centerpiece -- a Harris poll commissioned by the Academy -- found that the things American women want in health care are the things the patient-centered medical home is designed to provide.

The Academy also launched its first-ever "viral" video campaign about family medicine, posting five video vignettes on YouTube and other Web sites, and its Family Health Advocate Web site, which helps consumers learn about family medicine issues and speak out about them.

There are more Academy accomplishments in 2008 that I could list, but I'll stop here and leave you with one final thought. In this new year, with a new presidential administration committed to change, I think America is on the verge of finally making significant strides toward health care reform -- reform built on the bedrock of primary care and the medical home, thanks in large part to the Academy's advocacy work on your behalf.