The American Urological Association’s Delegates – Drs. Terry Grimm and Hans Arora; Alternate Delegates, Drs. James Gilbaugh and Jason Jameson; Young Physician Section Delegate, Dr. Clint Cary; and Resident/Fellow Section Delegate, Dr. Ruchika Talwar – continued working with hundreds of physicians at the American Medical Association (AMA) House of Delegates (HoD) 2021 Interim Meeting (virtual) to consider resolutions and reports covering clinical practice, payment, medical education, and public health topics. View our previous updates from the meeting.
On November 15, the AUA delegates spent the day in the general session where the House debated and voted on various measures. Here are some of the reports and resolutions of interest:
- Resolution 009 – Banning the Practice of Virginity Testing (Medical Students Section)
- There was widespread support for this measure, which ultimately was adopted by the House. Supporters noted that virginity testing is not evidence-based nor does it exist in medical literature, and the test is intrusive and often performed without consent.
- Resolution 101 – Standardized Coding for Telehealth Services (Virginia)
- This resolution would urge the AMA to advocate by regulation and/or legislation that telehealth services are uniformly identified by using place of service (02) without any additional requirements, such as modifiers imposed by third party payors, for claim submission and reimbursement. While consistency in reporting and coding rules to identify telehealth services in claims is important, some in the House felt that being overly prescriptive could undermine ongoing advocacy in this space. As a result, the measure was referred for a decision at later HoD meeting. AUA delegate Dr. Terry Grimm spoke in favor of this recommendation.
- Resolution 113 – Supporting Medicare Drug Price Negotiation (California)
- Resolve clauses one and three of this measure were ultimately adopted, which 1) reaffirmed existing AMA policy supporting federal legislation that gives the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services the authority to negotiate contracts with manufacturers of covered Part D drugs; working toward eliminating Medicare prohibition on drug price negotiation; and prioritizing its support for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to negotiate pharmaceutical pricing for all applicable medications covered by CMS, and 2) that AMA support legislation that limits Medicare annual drug price increases to the rate of inflation.
- Resolve clause two – dealing with foreign pricing indices – was referred for further consideration. Testimony cited that if international price averages were applied in Medicare Part B, it is unclear where limitations on pricing would occur. Physicians could be reimbursed at a lower amount than the purchase price of the drug, which would raise significant access concerns for patients.
- Resolution 411 – Addressing Public Health Disinformation (Young Physicians Section)
- This measure was amended and ultimately adopted to urge the AMA to collaborate with relevant stakeholders on efforts to combat public health disinformation on all forms of media and work with health professional societies to address disinformation that undermines public health initiatives.
Tuesday, the House will consider reports and resolutions from Reference Committee B (Legislation), Reference Committee C (Medical Education), Reference Committee E (Science & Technology), and Reference Committee G (Medical Practice).