New Year Resolutions at the AAFP

The AAFP plans to advocate for transforming the USA health care system in 2009 around the patient-centered medical home model.

Proposed transformation includes:

• payment reform
• workforce reform (creating a system that has enough PCPs to support universal health care)
• changing cultural values: respect, recognition and relief of family physicians and primary care doctors
  

Progress to date on the PCMH include recognition at both state and federal levels including insurance companies, consumer organizations and legislators. The adoption of the Joint Principles of the Patient-Centered Medical Home by the AMA on Nov. 10 is a huge step forward for the PCMH. The Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaboration also has a huge role in promoting the PCMH.

One of AAFP's focuses for the coming year is in promoting the fact that we cannot achieve universal health care as a nation unless we increase the number of PCPs. Massachusetts, for example, has nearly achieved universal health care on paper only to realize that it does not have enough PCPs to cover the entire population. It is like giving free bus passes to everyone when there is only 1 bus in the city.

AAFP plans to promote a transformed health care system based on primary care, a system which every other industrialized country has discovered. This requires attracting more residents into primary care and reforming the way that existing family doctors practice.

Check out the 2009 Environmental Scan on the AAFP Website that examines some of the health care policy and politics that may affect primary care and family medicine in this year. The website provides short video clips of different aspects of health care reform and policy.