Patients Before Paperwork Update:
- ACP, along with the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), organized a joint letter to Congressional leaders urging them to move forward with implementing the Evaluation and Management documentation and payment policy changes in 2021. These changes will reduce documentation burden and better recognize the value of primary care.
- Since the launch of CMS's own 鈥淧atients Over Paperwork鈥 initiative, ACP has actively engaged with CMS on the College's administrative burden priorities, including participating in numerous meetings with CMS leadership, writing comment letters, and attending stakeholder engagement events. The College has also seen a number of wins in this area, including the E/M documentation changes due to go into effect next year. Signaling their continued commitment to reducing clinician burden, CMS recently the formation of the new Office of Burden Reduction and Health Informatics. The office name suggests they will focus on health informatics as a key strategy to improve clinical documentation and reduce administrative burden. Through this new office, CMS plans to further engage more clinicians and health plans to better understand how various regulations impact patient care. ACP will continue to work with CMS on these important issues and is encouraged by the creation of the new office.
If you'd like to work with your chapter to advocate for regulatory relief during the COVID-19 crisis, please visit ACP's Chapter Advocacy Toolkit for more resources and calls to action.
ACP Patients Before Paperwork Initiative
Patients Before Paperwork is an ACP initiative designed to reinvigorate the patient鈥損hysician relationship by challenging unnecessary practice burdens. To help the Patients Before Paperwork Initiative, with our online data collection tool and contact the Patients Before Paperwork team directly at policy-regs@acponline.org
Back to the July 17, 2020 issue of ACP IM Thriving