The American College of Physicians (ACP) has released a practical resource guide for internists on recently-enacted healthcare reform legislation, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). An Internist's Practical Guide to Understanding Health System Reform was developed by ACP's Division of Governmental Affairs and Public Policy.
Although emphasising topics of particular interest to ACP members, the 91-page document provides practical information intended to be useful to many others, including physicians in other specialties, consumers, and policy analysts. ACP is making the guide broadly available to the public for free download, and has authorised redistribution of its contents by non-profit groups with attribution to ACP.
The Internist's Guide features a two-page table of contents with hyperlinks that take viewers directly to provisions within the guide. They can access areas of interest by placing the cursor over given provisions in the table of contents, and clicking with the mouse. The document is also in a 'searchable' format, which allows viewers to search for items of interest using keywords and phrases.
The 'Summary of Key Health System Reforms Affecting Patients' is a single page of key provisions affecting patients that is written in language that is intended to be understandable by much of the general public. Physicians can print the one-page summary and make it available to help answer patient questions.
The 'Summary of Key Provisions of Health System Reform Affecting Internists' provides a more in-depth examination of the coverage, workforce, payment and delivery reforms, and other elements of the legislation. The four-page is projected as a useful reference for physicians to answer their own, their patients', or their colleagues' questions.
The summaries precede some 80 pages of Q & A covering years 2010 to 2015 and beyond when various parts of the legislation take effect.
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