President Obama spoke at the American Medical Assn.’s annual meeting in Chicago yesterday and spent a lot of time (see transcript) addressing the need to reform physician payments and incentives:
We need to bundle payments so you aren’t paid for every single treatment you offer a patient with a chronic condition like diabetes, but instead paid well for how you treat the overall disease. We need to create incentives for physicians to team up, because we know that when that happens, it results in a healthier patient. We need to give doctors bonuses for good health outcomes, so we’re not promoting just more treatment, but better care.
Obama also defended his proposal for a public plan that competes against the private insurance industry, telling doctors “the public option is not your enemy; it is your friend.”
I know that there’s some concern about a public option. Even within this organization there’s healthy debate about it. In particular, I understand that you’re concerned that today’s Medicare rates, which many of you already feel are too low, will be applied broadly in a way that means our cost savings are coming off your backs.
And these are legitimate concerns, but they’re ones, I believe, that can be overcome. As I stated earlier, the reforms we propose to reimbursement are to reward best practices, focus on patient care, not on the current piecework reimbursements. What we seek is more stability and a health care system that’s on a sounder financial footing.
And the fact is these reforms need to take place regardless of whether there’s a public option or not. With reform, we will ensure that you are being reimbursed in a thoughtful way that’s tied to patient outcomes, instead of relying on yearly negotiations about the Sustainable Growth Rate formula that’s based on politics and the immediate state of the federal budget in any given year.
Can’t get enough of the Obama speech to the AMA. Click here for some good video coverage from Reuters or here for additional coverage from The Huffington Post.
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