MGMA's advocacy wishlist part 1

Every new Congress and presidential administration is an opportunity to improve the lot of physicians and practices across the country.

Anders Gilberg, senior vice president for government affairs at MGMA, discusses what the organization and their political partners are going to focus their efforts on this year.

Transcript:

Anders Gilberg: So those are the short term, like the immediate issues. And each year we put out an advocacy agenda. maybe you could link to it for me, but I can kind of just go through a few of the highlights.

I mean, usually the MGMA, we're really focused on the business of of medical practice. you know, we we want medical practices to run efficiently, to be profitable. To reduce that regulatory burden, as I mentioned, with the eye toward allowing physicians to take care of patients and to have better access if you're a patient so you don't have to wait three weeks to get an appointment. we feel like if the business runs smoothly, it health care runs smoothly in the communities in which our medical groups exist. We have 15,000 medical groups in our membership. So protecting that financial viability of medical groups is always sort of on the forefront of our advocacy agenda. There are a few other issues. One I mentioned is reforming prior authorization. so often we do a regulatory kind of, survey of our members. What are the most burdensome administrative and regulatory issues that your practice has faced? Always at the top is always is prior authorization. So we're working to to mitigate that burden, you know, not create a situation where there's more prior authorization, but make it easier for practices.

So, for example, more transparency. Legislation that I was discussing before it would shine a brighter light on insurance practices. So if you're a physician and you're ordering a test, or you're ordering a drug, or you're ordering a procedure, you will know what is subject to prior authorization or not. So it's not a big surprise on the back end that delays and causes potentially negative clinical outcomes. When you're not getting the care, the patient isn't getting the care they need, you know, as fast as they need it. So that's a huge issue for physicians and medical practices. Ultimately, though, our goal is to reduce the number of prior authorizations in this country. Probably not going to do away with it completely. But, you know, we want that decision making authority in the hands of the physicians, other clinicians With the patient. You know, it's part of that relationship not having it overridden by, for profit insurance companies. So that would be another issue.