News & Press

Growing Concern Regarding Allied Health Care Professions Growth and Health Care Fraud Leads the American Medical Association to Announce the Formation of a new Scope of Practice Partnership

The American Medical Association has begun a new effort to support quality in health care by organizing state medical societies and medical associations in a new organization called the Scope of Practice Partnership. The following information was written by John Weeks and comes from his article entitled AMA "Thwarts" Other Professions Practice Expansion and a Challenge to CAM-IM Fields."

AMA to"Thwart" Other Professions' Scope Expansion, and a Challenge to CAM-IM Fields

The American Medical Association has engaged a formal effort to stop allied health professions, including CAM disciplines, from expanding their scopes of practice. Top targets appear to be psychologists and nurse anesthesiologists, according to an American Medical News story (May 13, 2006) cited in an AMA backgrounder on the issue. The "partial list of legislative initiatives shows that bills of chiropractors, midwives and naturopathic doctors are also clearly in their sights. A March press release from the American Psychiatric Association (APA) speaks of the goal as "thwarting" non-MD practice expansion. The APA stimulated formation of the coalition which is being engaged through an AMA Scope of Practice Steering Committee.

The target is the "growing threat of expansion of scope of practice for allied health professions," according to the APA release. The AMA "partnership" plans to "coordinate research to help medical specialty societies and state medical associations fight expansions in non-medical scope of practice and improve information sharing among those groups."

The target is the "growing threat of expansion of scope of practice for allied health professions."

A particular focus for the psychiatric profession is the effort of psychologists to develop and expand prescribing rights for psych meds.

Michael Maves, MD, executive vice president and CEO of the AMA is quoted as saying that the effort will focus on sharing "legislative strategies allied health groups are using nationally." The fund will also be used to directly combat scope expansions. A core message will be that these are "not turf issues for one or another specialty but are concerns of the profession of medicine."

The founding members of the coalition are medical societies of Massachusetts, Colorado, Texas, California, New Mexico and Maine plus six medical specialty societies the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeon, American Society of Anesthesiologists, American Society of Plastic Surgeons, American Academy of Otolaryngology, and the American Academy of Opthamology. The APA release notes that "every medical specialty has concerns with a group of allied health professionals seeking privileges generally reserved for physicians." A particularly active state coalition is in Texas, where 10 societies are linked, entitled the PatientsFirstCoalition.

The AMA "partnership" aims to expand to all 50 states. Each partner has, or will, ante in $25,000, for an initial $300,000 fund. The one piece of hard evidence of patient harm cited in the materials reviewed by the IBN&R for this article was a negative study of outcomes of nurse anesthesiology in Medicare patients.