The American Medical Association (AMA) recently addressed a communication to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) outlining the federal regulations physicians find most burdensome. The list of these burdensome regulations, along with recommendations to improve them, was obtained through an AMA survey of physicians with more than 2,000 responses from a wide range of physicians and feedback from many state and medical specialty societies.
Physicians who participated in the survey could select which rules and regulations drive up administrative costs, add to the burden of paperwork for their practices, or interfere with patient care. Thousands of physicians answered the AMA's call to identify federal rules and regulations that create significant burden for their practices and take up time that is better spent with patients.
According to AMA President Cecil Wilson, physicians' top concerns, including unfunded federal mandates, elimination of Medicare payment for physician consultations, and incompatible and inconsistent quality initiatives, offer a road map for CMS to make strategic changes that benefit the entire Medicare system.
On January 18, President Obama issued an executive order calling on all government agencies to complete an analysis of rules that may be ineffective, insufficient or excessively burdensome. The survey was conducted earlier this year so AMA could provide CMS with physicians' top concerns as they complete their analysis. The survey responses dealt primarily with issues under the purview of CMS, the government agency that administers Medicare and Medicaid.
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