By: Gary LeRoy, MD, FAAFP, AAFP President-Elect
Reprinted from the winter 2018 issue of The Ohio Family Physician.
On October 10, I was honored to take the oath of office as your American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) president-elect. Surrounded by family and close friends, it was exciting to share this anticipated moment with hundreds of people representing chapter staff, members, and guests at the AAFP Congress of Delegates in New Orleans, LA.
Although I could live in that moment forever, it’s time to get back to business. With the focus of this issue being “Overcoming Administrative Burdens,” I want to highlight how the AAFP plans to help family physicians in this endeavor. According to the 2018 AAFP Member Satisfaction Survey, nearly half of AAFP members reported administrative burdens as the greatest issue/challenge faced in daily practice.
This alarming information resulted in the AAFP Board of Directors adjusting its strategic priorities to place overcoming administrative burdens at the center of its plan. By reducing administrative burdens, the AAFP believes it can help members bring joy back into the practice of family medicine.
Family physicians provide America with over 193 million office visits each year. We are often referred to as the “canary in the coal mine” of public health. Well, here’s a newsflash: The canary sounds the alarm for everyone else, but is the first to die. The trusted voice of family medicine must be heard loud and clear; but our demise cannot be part of the solution to improving America’s healthcare system. The specialty of family medicine is essential to the vitality and survival of the entire system, which is why the AAFP is listening.
The AAFP has also assigned a group to organize and align administrative burden advocacy with public and private payers, and has developed a measurable dashboard to track the progress. Also, this past year, the AAFP provided three recommendations to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and currently participates in the Ways and Means Medicare Red Tape Initiative.
And this is just the start. The AAFP plans to aggressively remove administrative barriers impeding a physician’s ability to efficiently navigate patient care processes.
In a recent AAFP blog, I shared insights about how the AAFP can take a proactive role in reducing administrative burdens by exploiting emerging technologies. I foresee members being on the leading edge of pioneering new models of practice using augmented digital technologies to facilitate, not hinder, physician-patient interactions during and between office visits.
The same digital assistances (e.g. Siri, Alexa, etc.) that are becoming commonly used in our homes and fit within our pockets will assist us in developing professional service products to enhance patient communications, monitor illness and diseases, and provide medical care. These same technologies can also be used to receive verifiable instant reimbursement for our services as they are rendered (e.g. Apple Pay, PayPal, Google Pay, etc.).
Using integrations of human genome technologies and artificial intelligence/machine learning now being made available in commercial markets, the family physician will be able to use intelligent data to delay or extinguish a genetically predisposed disease before it has an opportunity to fully take control of a patient’s life.
By using portable wearable technologies that monitor life’s vital functions, our patients will be able to report health concerns to their personal physician in real time (e.g. Apple watch ECG capability, wearable health monitoring apps, etc.). Using the power of an ever-expanding constellation of social media technologies tailor-made for our respective communities, we will have the capability of delivering continuous, comprehensive, and coordinated professional medical care with less administrative burden.
The AAFP has already begun partnering with the technology industry to accelerate making these insights a reality for the practicing physician. As I begin a new chapter in my family medicine journey, I want to bring you – the family physician – along with me.
I hope to have many opportunities over the next three years to share your amazing stories on a national stage where the collective voice of family medicine can be heard above the deafening background noise of distorted facts. The AAFP wants to talk with you, not at you, by any means necessary to have your voice heard.