WASHINGTON – Healthy Future Task Force co-chairs, Congressman Vern Buchanan (FL-16) and Congressman Brett Guthrie (KY-02), and the Doctor-Patient Relationship Subcommittee announced the Task Force’s solutions to improving the patient care experience and strengthening the doctor-patient relationship.
In an op-ed for the Washington Examiner, the co-chairs and the Doctor-Patient Relationship Subcommittee Chairman Larry Bucshon, M.D. (IN-08), Subcommittee Member Greg Murphy, M.D. (NC-03) and Subcommittee Member Beth Van Duyne (TX-24) outlined proposals to improve the patient care experience by allowing providers to focus on patients over paperwork, modernizing antiquated processes that delay patient care and addressing provider shortages through oversight of health care workforce programs.
“Instead of a government-run, socialized system that puts bureaucrats in charge of health care, Republicans are focused on getting Washington out of your doctor’s office. We commend Representatives Dr. Bucshon, Dr. Murphy and Van Duyne for their work with us on the Healthy Future Task Force to put forward solutions that will strengthen the relationships that patients have with their doctors. These solutions also aim to make care more individualized, ensure patients have access to the best available providers and continue promoting access to mental health and substance use disorder health care services that are increasingly needed following the impact of harmful COVID-19 lockdowns on Americans’ mental health. These proposals build upon the Healthy Future Task Force’s work to better serve all patients and help them live healthier and longer lives,” said Buchanan and Guthrie.
Overview of solutions:
- Get Washington out of the doctor’s office: Remove harmful federal mandates, improve quality metrics on providers and ease the complexity of Electronic Health Records to ensure the patient stays the main focus of visits
- Ensure access to quality providers: Make sure investments in graduate medical education are translating into improved care, reauthorize the SUPPORT Act and create certainty on provider reimbursement
- Grant timely access to care for patients: Reform prior authorization process to stop this cause of delay of care by streamlining and standardizing prior authorization to encourage real-time decisions.
Click HERE for a more detailed one pager.
House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy created the 17-member Healthy Future Task Force to develop solutions to modernize the American health care system to lower costs, keep Americans healthy, develop better therapies and cures and provide Americans with more choices. The Doctor/Patient Relationship Subcommittee is one of five subcommittees part of The Healthy Future Task Force, which also includes the Treatment Subcommittee, Security Subcommittee, Modernization Subcommittee and Affordability Subcommittee.
Click HERE to view the Modernization Subcommittee solutions.
Click HERE to view the Treatment Subcommittee solutions.
Click HERE to view the Security Subcommittee solutions.
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