18 patient groups Join effort to fix holes in health care 'efficiency'

WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 /PRNewswire/ -- Today 18 major patient organizations focused on Capital Hill to raise questions and concerns about current Senate legislation to create new "efficiency" procedures and physician profiling in the medical care of the sick.

"We urge Congress to modify so-called efficiency profiling so that it rewards quality care, not the cheapest care," reads an ad appearing in Capital Hill newspapers this week and signed by WomenHeart: The National Coalition of Women with Heart Disease, the National Health Council, and the Kidney Cancer Association as well as other patient organizations who have been raising this issue for several months under the banner United to Protect Quality Care.

These efforts take place as Congress begins final negotiations on Medicare reconciliation language which includes "efficiency" profiling language in the Senate designed to track, in part, how many procedures they perform and how expensive their treatments are. These results are then compared to other physicians and reported back to the doctor.

"When doctors are given disincentives from treating people with the most significant health care needs, that not only affects the individual but the whole system," stated Marcie Roth, Executive Director of the National Spinal Cord Injury Association.

The patient groups are urging the House and Senate to include Senators Coleman (R-MN) and Kennedy's (D-MA) amendment language on this issue to any final version of this legislation. In addition to the media attention, many of these organizations signed a letter to Congress in support of this language.

The eighteen organizations include: Alliance for Aging Research, Alpha-1 Association, Alpha-1 Foundation, American Association of People with Disabilities, American Bladder & Pelvic Pain Association, Inc., Interstitial Cystitis Network, Kidney Cancer Association, National Association for Continence, National Association of Nurse Practitioners in Women's Health, National Health Council, National Marfan Foundation, National Spinal Cord Injury Association, Osteogenesis Imperfecta Foundation, Parkinson's Action Network, Prevent Blindness America, Simon Foundation for Continence, United Spinal Association, WomenHeart: the National Coalition for Women with Heart Disease.