MMA Viewpoint
The Academy for Your Education, the MMA for Your Practice
Your Minnesota Medical Association has been very active on two major issues that affect your practice: health care reform and the new processes for ordering high-tech imaging.
Health care reform has been a top priority for the MMA for several years. Now representatives of Healthy Minnesota: A Partnership for Reform, which includes legislators, educators, physicians, and executive-level leaders of health plans, hospitals, clinics, and consumer organizations, have announced a vision for health care reform that they hope can be achieved by 2011. They have proposed legislation for 2007 that would immediately start moving the state in that direction. The partnership, chaired by MMA Board member Donald Jacobs, M.D., began with the MMA’s Physicians’ Plan for a Healthy Minnesota as its starting point and, after a year of diligent work, developed its own vision and strategy for achieving it.
Their vision includes health insurance coverage for all Minnesotans, more affordable care and coverage, better health for residents of the state, a focus on value in a patient-centered system, strong patient-clinician relationships, and adequate and stable funding.
The 2007 legislation would require all Minnesotans to have health insurance and provide help to those who can’t afford it; introduce insurance reforms; create pilot projects for medical homes, where the emphasis is on coordinating care, preventing illness, and managing chronic disease; provide funding for public health and health promotion; and help clinics in rural underserved areas afford electronic medical record systems.
Although this bill would not solve all the problems in our state’s health care system, it would make a firm commitment to universal coverage in Minnesota and set us on the road to health care reform.
Our second major challenge has been responding to the new requirements that physicians notify or “consult” with a health-plan-selected vendor before ordering high-tech diagnostic imaging for their patients.
The MMA heard an outpouring of anger from members complaining that the new requirements are a waste of time, put an expensive administrative burden on clinics, and add to the time patients must wait for an imaging procedure.
After carefully reviewing the issue, we asked health plans to withdraw their varied programs and join in a communitywide effort to collect information that will help us better understand high-tech imaging use throughout Minnesota. This information could be used to develop solutions that will make sure patients get the right scan at the right time, without over- or under-utilization. The MMA is continuing to work for a solution that will benefit you and your patients.
In addition to these two issues, we have been working on pay for performance, quality, and tiering, which will greatly influence your practice in the coming days and years. These have been discussed in various MMA forums, and information is available through your MMA.
I’m asked every day why we physicians should join the MMA when we belong to our specialty academies and societies. My answer is that these groups are primarily focused on education. And they’re national in scope, so their orientation is not always toward helping you with your practice of medicine in Minnesota.
The MMA will continue to help you improve your practice and oppose regulations or processes that interfere with providing high-quality care. Thus, my argument for MMA membership is: “The Academy for Your Education, the MMA for Your Practice.”