State Medical Societies Urge Congress to Fight for Funding for Community Physician Practices in Next Stimulus Package

MSSNY Press Release Banner

For Immediate Release
June 16, 2020 

CONNECTICUT STATE MEDICAL SOCIETY
MEDICAL SOCIETY OF DELAWARE
MED CHI, THE MARYLAND STATE MEDICAL SOCIETY
MEDICAL SOCIETY OF NEW JERSEY
MEDICAL SOCIETY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK
OHIO STATE MEDICAL ASSOCIATION 

State Medical Societies Urge Congress to Fight for Funding for Community Physician Practices in Next Stimulus Package

On behalf of the tens of thousands of physicians collectively represented by our associations, and the millions of patients we treat, we are urging that Congress continue to fight for needed funding in the next “stimulus” package to assist community physician practices to be able to keep their doors open for their patients.  Like many businesses, our physicians have faced a devastating impact on their practices as a result of the Covid-19 outbreak.

At stake is access to care for the patients we serve and the staff we employ. With patients having appropriately limited their trips out of the house including to their doctor’s offices along with all elective procedures being suspended for months, the impact has devastated practices and the hundreds of thousands of those physicians employed by community physician practice.

For example, a survey by the Medical Society of the State of NY found that: 79% of physicians had seen a reduction of more than 50% in the volume of patients visiting their practices; Nearly 3/4 had a greater than 50% drop in practice revenue; and 40% had to lay off or furlough at least 25% of their staff.  While the survey also demonstrated that the CARES Act enacted by Congress in March and supplemented in April helped to marginally offset some of these enormous deficits, it has been nowhere near enough to ensure the survival of many physician practices across the state.

We urge that you fight to ensure that the final package includes important protections, including a re-start of the Medicare Advance Payment Program and ensuring that grant funding is dedicated to community physician practices without size restrictions or employee thresholds. So far, community physicians have only received a microscopic portion of the billions in grant funding allocated by Congress in the CARES Act, which has mostly benefitted large health systems.  While our hospitals must be protected and strengthened, so too must our community physicians for whom our patients depend.

We also urge that the next stimulus bill include provisions to ensure that critically important expanded telehealth coverage rules are maintained – including required coverage by ERISA plans not subject to state regulation but also rejecting industry efforts to fulfill network adequacy requirements only through telehealth at the expense of in-person care.

We also urge that the market dominant health insurers who faced a significant drop in claim submissions ensure that their windfall profits are shared with their contracted physicians including through support for the huge increase in Personal Protective equipment (PPE) costs.  For example, Aetna recently announced that its claims submission had dropped by 30% during April at the height of the pandemic.

Moreover, it is critically important that any proposal to address surprise out of network medical bills are consistent with demonstrated successful laws such as New York’s groundbreaking solution, rather than one-sided solutions advanced by the market-dominant health insurance industry that could potentially adversely impact patient access to essential on-call specialty care in emergency departments across the State.  Now is not the time to disrupt our health care safety net.

Critically important as well is providing support for those physicians, residents and students who provided on the front lines who provided needed care to patients while putting their life and health at risk, including hazard pay and/or student loan relief.  Representative Maloney has advanced important legislation (HR 6720) that would achieve this goal.

To repeat  – we are extremely concerned about the stability of our health care system given these enormous losses. The next package coming out of Congress must help to preserve our States’ health care infrastructure, including community physician practices.  This is not only essential for the hundreds of thousands of jobs we provide but most importantly to ensure we can continue to be able to treat our patients who continue to depend upon as begin to recover from this crisis.

# # #

About the Medical Society of the State of New York
Founded in 1807, the Medical Society of the State of New York is the state’s principal non-profit professional organization for physicians, residents and medical students of all specialties. Its mission is to represent the interests of patients and physicians to assure quality healthcare services for all.

 

MSSNY Contact:
Roseann Raia
Communications / Marketing
Medical Society of the State of New York
865 Merrick Ave.
Westbury, New York
516-488-6100 ext 302
rraia@mssny.org

 

Facebook Icon Twitter Icon