Why Aren’t Physicians Part Of The Health Reform Conversation?

This post was contributed by Dr. Walker Ray, President of the Physicians Foundation and Tim Norbeck, CEO of the Physicians Foundation.

While at a party recently, the question came up, as it often does, about how physicians feel about the Affordable Care Act – now better known as Obamacare.

We pointed to our Physicians Foundation national survey in 2014 where 75 percent gave it a grade of C, D or F.  Only 3.7 percent of physicians thought the legislation warranted an A grade.  Several more people, not physicians, then joined the discussion and the conversation switched to the general subject of physician influence in the health reform debate.

Most people are surprised and somewhat disappointed to hear that, generally speaking, physician input is not sought by most legislators. We see physicians on a regular basis and almost invariably hear them complain about not having any influence on health legislation, either at the state or national level.  Make no mistake about it, physicians want to spend most of their time seeing and helping patients and object to spending 20 percent of their day on paperwork matters – whether it be dealing with formularies, claims, billing, credentialing, pre-authorizations and quality measuring data.  These regulations and red-tape intrusions are naturally bothersome and limit the time they can spend with their patients.  While physicians are understandably frustrated by excessive and unhelpful regulations, they are more upset by the fact that legislators and health policy makers who are devising legislative solutions to the biggest issues in our health care system are doing so without physician input. Why do they not give sufficient attention to physicians who actually render the care?

This complaint about their concerns not being heard and sometimes, not even being sought, transcends Obamacare.  Can anyone actually remember when practicing physicians played a major, significant role in any national healthcare proposal in the past seven or so decades?  Is it such a novel idea to have those who take care of us and our fellow citizens to actually have a say and impact on how that care should be delivered?  Besides physicians, patient input should be equally welcome in these discussions, but that is not the way it works.  You can bet the mortgage that lawyers will always have a great influence on legal reforms just as bankers will have such a voice on financial matters – but for some reason….not physicians on healthcare.

Ask your friends sometime, or your work colleagues, if they think that physicians should have a major role in healthcare reform legislation – both at the state and federal levels.  We would be shocked if they not only support such input, but would expect it.

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