AAFP monitors four upcoming legislations in Congress | Courtesy of Morguefile
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Amanda Rupp | Nov 3, 2016

AAFP monitors four upcoming pieces of legislation in Congress

The American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) recently confirmed its intent to closely monitor four upcoming pieces of legislation, which are going to be left to the 114th Congress.

These issues concern payment for chronic care management, sustainability for teaching health centers (THCs), mental health reform and support for direct primary care (DPC).

The THC Graduate Medical Education program will have a significant portion of Congress’ time, as it is a pressing issue: crucial to expanding access to health care while also improving the primary care pipeline through primary care residency training. This training will be done even in rural and community settings.

"The THC program has been wildly successful by beginning to address our historic shortage of primary care physicians and encouraging new physicians to practice in areas in dire need of family physicians' services," Robert Hall told AAFP News at the 2016 AAFP State Legislative Conference in Phoenix.

To support this program, the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) has set aside $60 million each year to fund the program in 2016 and 2017. Unfortunately, this funding is scheduled to expire in September next year.

The AAFP intends to monitor these concerns and inform AAFP readers with the latest updates.

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