PAI Calls on HHS To Advance Policies That Protect Physician-Led Care

PAI believes that safeguarding physician leadership care is vital to advancing people’s health and wellbeing. It headlines our recommendations to the Department of Health and Human Services in response to its Ensuring Lawful Regulation and Unleashing Innovation To Make America Healthy Again RFI.

PAI highlights how certain federal policies limit patient access to care, erode independent physician practice and accelerate health care consolidation, which decreases access and increases costs. Our recommendations include:

• Modernizing the Physician Self-Referral Law and Anti-Kickback Statute to support the sustainability of independent physician practices, particularly in rural areas
• Lifting restrictions on physician-owned hospitals, which research shows provide high-value, physician-led care to patients
• Encouraging Congress to permanently tie Medicare physician payment increases to inflation, as measured by the Medicare Economic Index
• Implementing site-neutral payments between physician offices and hospital outpatient departments
• Working with Congress to permanently expand telehealth flexibilities for Medicare enrollees
• Alleviating administrative burdens imposed on physicians by prior authorization and information technology requirements