AMA Adopts Strategies To Address Rising Health Care Costs

The American Medical Association (AMA) announced that the nation's physicians today voted to approve a set of strategies for containing health care costs and achieving even greater value for health spending. Physicians at the AMA Annual Meeting asserted that successful cost-containment must focus on balancing costs and benefits.
"Health care spending has yielded substantial clinical, economic and quality of life benefits, but the overall growth in health care costs has outpaced general inflation," noted AMA Board Member Carmel, M.D. "While physicians play a key role in efforts to contain costs, problems like obesity, tobacco use, alcohol and substance abuse and violence will require action from coalitions of stakeholders from within and outside the health care system to drive major societal change.

AMA Calls For Investigation Of Store-Based Health Clinics

The American Medical Association (AMA) announced today that it would call for investigations into potential conflicts of interest posed by joint ventures between store-based health clinics and pharmacy chains.
The AMA's call for investigations was driven by retailers who have stated that store-based health clinics help drive additional store traffic, which can increase sales of lucrative prescription drugs and other non-health related products.
"There are clear incentives for retailers to participate in the implementation and operation of store-based health clinics," said AMA Board Member Peter Carmel, M.D. "The nation's physicians want the AMA to ensure these incentives do not compromise the basic obligation of store-based health clinics to provide patients with quality care."