TUCSON, Ariz., Sept. 22, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — On Wednesday, Sept 23, 2015, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) is bringing physicians to Capitol Hill to brief Congress on the impact of government requirements such as the ICD-10 diagnostic codes on patient care.
The briefing is from noon to 1:00 p.m. in Room 2203, Rayburn building. Lunch will be provided; registration is required.
Physicians will discuss both how bureaucratic red tape is strangling patient care and how physicians who practice outside of government and insurance company control are lowering costs for patients while providing high-quality medical care.
Despite the outpouring of opposition from physicians and their patients, AAPS notes, Congress has refused to relent on the mandate to use ICD-10 diagnostic coding as of Oct 1—or not get paid. Proponents claim that ICD-10 will increase efficiency, reduce costs, and improve quality. We have heard this before, AAPS states, with respect to the Affordable Care Act, but Massachusetts, the poster child for ACA, recently announced that growth in healthcare costs doubled in 2014.
Al Fisher, M.D., a family physician in Wisconsin, writes that ICD-10 makes 30 years worth of experience in ICD-9 obsolete overnight. To comply with ICD-10, an office needs to buy new computers and new software and hire expensive consultants. One consultant offered his services to Dr. Fisher’s office for $3,000 per month. Fisher notes that nationwide costs for implementing ICD-10 are estimated to be as high as $13.5 billion. “No wonder small offices are closing and doctors are selling out to hospitals at an increasing rate,” he states.
Fisher concludes that ICD-10 is of zero benefit to patients, but researchers want patient data—which should be confidential. Additionally, he writes, “there is an entire industry that feeds on medical coding.”
Also presenting will be AAPS past president Juliette Madrigal-Dersch, M.D., who practices internal medicine and pediatrics in Texas. Her third-party-free practice was featured in the Wall Street Journal in 2013. Increasing numbers of physicians are following her lead, AAPS notes, so that they can concentrate on their patients instead of increasing burdensome regulations that destroy the patient-physician relationship.
The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) is a national organization representing physicians in all specialties, founded in 1943 to preserve private medicine and the patient-physician relationship.
CONTACT: Jane M. Orient, M.D., (520) 323-3110, [email protected]