Advocacy Update

AAHPM Offers Leadership at the AMA: a Report from the 2019 Annual Meeting of the House of Delegates

Jacqueline M. Kocinski, MPP

“Together we are not just stronger. When we join hands, and speak up for our patients, we are unstoppable.” With those words, Barbara L. McAneny, MD, outgoing president of the American Medical Association (AMA), addressed the hundreds of physicians gathered in Chicago for the 2019 Annual Meeting of the AMA House of Delegates (HOD). She highlighted the AMA’s advocacy in the fight against growing administrative burden; health industry consolidation; interference in the patient-physician relationship; and barriers to patient access to adequate, affordable insurance coverage. She also reminded attendees that physician guidance is key to ensuring policymakers enact change that heals what’s ailing the US healthcare delivery system and driving physician burnout.