Friday, October 7, 2011

Concerns

AOMA's President Jan D. Zieren, D.O., MPH, FACOFP, dist. updates the AOMA membership on her president's message from her inauguration (see original text here).

We continue to sail through the Healthcare waters having just entered the Sea of Concerns.  Certainly there is plenty to be concerned about – our physicians (licensing, certification, viable practices, retirement options); our patients (jobs, finances, insurance, health or illness); our profession (training sites, numbers, profession choices, residencies); our state and national healthcare situations.

Physicians are stressing with so many current changes and those looming on the horizon. The direction of certification is toward “continuous” in which cycles of training and testing over several years involving different disease categories instead of a crash course and testing over all the topics once every so many years.  The question is “will licensing pick up on this and utilize the continuous certification as a maintenance of licensure criterion?”  How many physicians have viable practices or have needed to become employees of a large group?  Are physicians able to become a Medical Home and provide complete care to their patients? What percentages of physicians or groups are now utilizing electronic medical records? How many physicians have retired from these stressors or changes in practice style?

Patients are not finding this any easier either.  Insurance costs are usually very high or the deductible is instead.  Seniors are often viciously hunting for the “best deal” with meds included if possible.  Some patients have lost their jobs, thus their access to health care insurance, or worse, enough income to pay for the home and/or car.  There are amazing patients working two or three jobs, or also attending college and yet find time for eating and sleeping.  And the decisions they must make… to see their physician or hit the urgent care/emergency room for a problem – whether great or small – depending on the availability of the physician in the office or their financial/insurance situation.

AOMA has committees and staff addressing the profession’s concerns for our members.  Addressing scope of practice issues; providing CME opportunities; lobbying for issues at the legislature; representing our organization in community interests such as Arizona Health-e connection, Health Services Advisory Group and Medicare’s Quality Improvement Organization.

As if just running a practice were not enough – these concerns have impacted so much and so many.  Give the office or your Delegates to AOMA any input or information to assist us through this journey.

Note: You can find your district and Delegates by visiting the House of Delegates page on the AOMA website.