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AMA urges new payment models be tied to physician-led health care teams
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Any new health care delivery models should be structured around physician-led teams, according to the American Medical Association.
“Team-based care delivery models are quickly emerging as the preferred method for providing coordinated, cost-effective, high-quality health care for patients,” the AMA said in a statement issued Monday.
The AMA believes it is clear that medicine and health care delivery must become more of a “cooperative science” that includes clinicians, specialists and laboratory workers, according to the statement. It’s also clear from the statement that the AMA believes that such teams should have physicians at the helm. Calling other models “insular,” the AMA points to the proven success rate of physician-led, team-based models managed by Mayo Clinic, Geisinger Health System, Intermountain Healthcare and Kaiser Permanente.
“The AMA and the broader physician community firmly believe that this approach represents the future of health care delivery in America,” AMA President Ardis D. Hoven, MD, said in the statement.
The AMA also outlined specific recommendations contained in a report to guide policymakers, including:
- “physicians who lead team-based care in their practices receive payments for health care services provided by the team … ”
- “physicians make decisions about payment disbursement in consideration of team member contributions … ”
- “payment systems for the physicians-led team-based care [should] reflect the value provided by the team, with the savings accrued by this value shared by the team … ”