AAFP News Now -- American Academy of Family Physicians

Report Highlights Practice Hassles

Patient-Centered Medical Home Would Ease Burden on Primary Care Practices, Say AAFP, ACP

(11/26/2008) -- A recently released survey by the Boston-based Physicians' Foundation paints a distressing picture. It describes widespread unhappiness with the current practice environment among primary care physicians. So much so that nearly half of those surveyed said they planned to cut back on their patient panels or leave practice entirely within the next three years -- a prospect that would exacerbate existing access problems for health care consumers. More

AAFP Releases Fiscal Year 2007-08 Financial Summary

(12/01/2008) -- In accordance with the AAFP Bylaws, the Academy is posting its annual financial summary, which has been certified by a public accountant. More (Members Only)

House Committee Sides With Physicians on ICD-10

(11/26/2008) -- The U.S. House of Representatives Small Business Committee has sided with America's physicians in a tug of war with HHS regarding its proposed Oct. 1, 2011, deadline for implementing a new codes set for outpatient diagnosis coding. More

USPSTF, AAFP Statements Encourage Physicians to Support Breastfeeding

Intervention, Education Play Roles in Increasing Breastfeeding Rates

(11/26/2008) -- Both the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, or USPSTF, and the AAFP have released documents encouraging physicians and other clinicians to support breastfeeding. Each document cites a growing body of evidence that breastfeeding benefits the health of both mothers and their infants. More

2008 Interim Meeting

AMA Backs Measures That Benefit Primary Care Physicians

(11/25/2008) -- The AAFP and other primary care groups continued their winning streak in the house of medicine when the AMA House of Delegates recently voted to support several measures designed to encourage physicians and physicians-in-training to choose careers in primary care. The measures included calls to enhance payment for primary care physician services and decrease debt loads. More

Primary Care Shortages Lead to Increase in ER Use, Study Finds

(11/25/2008) -- The dramatic increase in emergency department use during the past several years has been driven, in large part, by the chronic shortage of primary care physicians, according to a study in the Oct. 22 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, or JAMA. More

State Legislative Conference Underscores Need for More Primary Care Physicians

(11/21/2008) -- The chronic shortage of primary care physicians threatens to slow and considerably complicate health care reform efforts on the state level, forcing states to redouble their recruitment and retention efforts. That was one of the major themes to emerge from the AAFP's state legislative conference, Nov. 14-15 in St. Louis. Several speakers at the conference described various ways states are bolstering their primary care physician workforces. More

AAFP Performance Improvement Initiative

Just-released METRIC Module Tackles Depression

(11/21/2008) -- The Academy's performance improvement program known as METRIC, or Measuring, Evaluating and Translating Research Into Care, recently launched a new module on depression that will be of special interest to family physicians. Bruce Bagley, M.D., AAFP's medical director of quality improvement, said the latest module -- Depression: Improving Patient Care -- will help physicians organize their approach to treating patients with depression. More