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Winter 2012
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As members of the Med-Peds community, we need to be aware of how Federal Health Care Reform will impact our specialty.
A common theme in the legislation is to make changes that benefit primary care specialties. Unfortunately, combined Internal Medicine-Pediatrics is not listed as a primary care specialty, while internal medicine, pediatrics, family medicine, geriatric medicine, and obstetrics-gynecology are included. There are potential implications to this, not limited to differential reimbursements to Med-Peds primary care physicians, difficulty of Med-Peds residents to apply to federal loan forgiveness programs, and difficulty of Med-Peds Program Directors to apply for certain training grants.
You Can Change This!
2. When the window opens, go through each of your representatives. For each one you'll see a page with a "Contact" tab, where you'll have a link to a web form to directly email that Representative.
Note that the location of your office or hospital, may give you access to a different Representative or Senator than where you currently reside, so feel free to send this to other officials who may have jurisdiction in your area.
Enter your information below:
Your position: (e.g. resident)
Your institution:
Your Name:
Contact me at: (you can put both phone and email if you want)
Now enter the information for the first representative you want to send the letter to:
First Name: Last Name:
Place of Work:
Are you a constitutent of this Representative?
3. Now scroll down to see the letter you've created! You can copy the text and paste it into the contact webform from Congress.org, or you can print it out and send it by mail or fax. Feel free to change it further so that it sounds more personal.
4. If you want to change the letter to send to another representative, change only those text fields above that you need to and the letter will be automatically updated, ready to be copied once again.
Please report any bugs or problems with this page to webmaster@medpeds.org.
This is time sensitive so your attention to this is greatly appreciated
For those of you attending the NMPRA National Meeting in October, we are planning a Hill Visit on October 19th. If you would like to participate, please email Kierstin at president@medpeds.org and she will pass on the necessary information on to you.
The Honorable [Full Name]
United States [Senate/House of Representatives]
Washington, DC 20510
Dear [Senator/Representative] [Last Name]:
As [position/title] at [institution], I urge you to support the inclusion of combined Internal Medicine-Pediatrics as a primary care specialty in any proposed federal legislation.
Physicians trained in combined Internal Medicine-Pediatrics (Med-Peds) are fully qualified as general internists and as general pediatricians, and, as such, should be considered a primary care specialty. Currently there are approximately 1400 Med-Peds residents in training and approximately 7000 Med-Peds physicians in practice. According to 2007 data, 55% of Med-Peds graduates practice primary care and, on average, spend 75% of their time in direct patient care activities. In addition, over 90% of Med-Peds-trained physicians take care of both children and adults. Med-Peds-trained physicians can be found in all 50 states, practicing in both rural and urban areas.
Combined Med-Peds residency programs have existed since 1967 and train physicians who care for Americans across the entire lifespan, from newborns to the elderly. These residents train in both Internal Medicine and Pediatrics in a four-year long residency and are considered both internists and pediatricians. The additional fourth year of training, in order to be eligible to obtain Board Certification in both specialties, was supported in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, which allowed Graduate Medical Education payments to institutions that had combined training programs in two primary care disciplines. Since 2006, the Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) has given Med-Peds programs accreditation, the same as individual internal medicine and pediatrics programs.
Children with chronic illnesses (e.g. congenital heart disease, diabetes) are living longer than in the past with approximately 500,000 children who have at least one chronic condition turning 18 every year. The intensive training in both medical specialties allows Med-Peds physicians to care for this population so they do not lose their primary care provider as they age out of pediatric care. Furthermore, since Med-Peds-trained physicians are board eligible in both Internal Medicine and Pediatrics, approximately 20% Med-Peds graduates choose to pursue subspecialty training in Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, or both. This additional training allows these subspecialty-trained physicians to provide care to children with chronic illnesses as they get older without leaving their subspecialty provider.
The United States is facing a physician shortage, and the demand for physicians will increase far more rapidly than the supply under current standards. The physician population most affected by this shortage is primary care physicians. Internal medicine and pediatrics are already listed as primary care specialties. Physicians trained in Med-Peds are another piece of the solution to the primary care crisis.
Since Med-Peds encompasses training in two primary care disciplines and enables practice across the age spectrum, to both children and adults with chronic illnesses, I encourage you to include combined Internal Medicine-Pediatrics as a primary care specialty in any proposed federal legislation. Specific areas to consider include the reauthorization of Title VII of the Public Health Service Act, funding for the National Health Service Corps, graduate medical education funding, and the redistribution of unused residency positions.
Again, thank you for considering this request. Please contact me at [contact method] if you have any questions, if you would like to discuss this in more detail, or if I can be of any further assistance.
Sincerely,
[Your Name]
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Disclaimer: The blogs and websites above are not hosted by NMPRA.
NMPRA is not responsible for and does not endorse any views, opinions, advertising, products, or resources available from the above blogs and websites