Physician leaders discussed and endorsed the WHA Physician Regulatory Burden Reduction Work Plan at the WHA Physician Leaders Council December meeting. The Work Plan will be advanced for final review by the WHA Board in early 2019.
Led by the WHA Physician Leaders Council, WHA gathered information throughout 2018 from the Council, the WHA Board, individual member chief medical officers and other member leaders, and partner organizations to identify key regulatory and practice burdens for physicians and potential areas for future action by WHA to address those burdens.
The Work Plan identifies key state advocacy, federal advocacy, and educational strategies focused on reducing physician regulatory and practice burden. With further guidance from the Physician Leaders Council and WHA members, the strategies contained in the Work Plan will guide WHA’s goals and activities aimed at reducing physician burden over the upcoming years.
Examples of key targets in the Work Plan for WHA advocacy and education efforts focusing on reducing physician burden include:
- Advance team-based care reforms to remove physician signature and oversight requirements for advanced practice clinicians that provide little quality assurance.
- Continue to pursue policies that will provide payment for physician-provided services not currently reimbursed by Medicaid in areas such as telemedicine, care coordination, and consultation services.
- Continue to engage in CMS’ “patients over paperwork” agenda by making recommendations to reduce burdensome, duplicative, and outdated federal regulations impacting physician practice.
- Seek to work with electronic health record (EHR) vendor partners to advocate for the simplification of CMS measures and regulations that increase the cost and complexity of EHR systems.
- Build upon existing WHA education and resources to help chief medical officers, other physician leaders, and their organizations identify strategies to limit physician burden caused by care delivery, payment, and regulatory change.
Physician Leader Advocacy Engagement Opportunities
Following a discussion of the upcoming 2019-2020 Legislative session, the Council also discussed upcoming opportunities for physician leaders to personally impact public policy affecting physicians and care delivery.
“WHA’s Advocacy Day on April 17, 2019, in Madison is a great opportunity for physician leaders to bring their teams to Madison to hear about key public policy issues impacting health care and to directly engage in public policy advocacy,” said Kari Hofer, WHA Vice President of Advocacy.
By joining hundreds of other WHA member advocates visiting their elected officials, Advocacy Day gives physician leaders an opportunity to participate in meetings with legislators and help share a common advocacy message.
Hofer also encouraged physician leaders to sign up to be a part of WHA’s Hospitals Education & Advocacy Team (HEAT) network. The HEAT network is a WHA contact list of individuals that WHA will alert when key state and federal public policy issues arise and provides easy-to-use templates for HEAT members to send a brief email to their elected officials.
Those personal contacts with elected officials can make a key difference, said Hofer, and the HEAT network was created to help make it easy for individuals quickly, and with a common message, directly influence key public policy decisions in Wisconsin and with Wisconsin’s Congressional delegation.
To learn more or to sign up for HEAT, contact
Kari Hofer or
click here.