MSSNY Urges Legislature to Address “Burnout” Drivers and Reject Scope Expansion that Adversely Impacts Patient Care

MSSNY Urges Legislature to Address “Burnout” Drivers and Reject Scope Expansion that Adversely Impacts Patient Care

This week MSSNY President Dr. Paul Pipia was one of many healthcare association representatives that testified at a NYS Assembly hearing examining the state of New York’s workforce and efforts to address various health care professional worker shortages.

Dr. Pipia’s testimony focused on the importance of addressing the adverse impact to our healthcare system arising from the increasing prevalence of “burnout” suffered by physicians and other health professionals.  To help respond to this problem, he called for legislation to enhance confidentiality protections for MSSNY’s peer support program to further encourage physician use of this important program.  He also highlighted the need to reduce the litany of administrative hassles accelerating physician burnout, including excessive documentation and authorization demands from health insurers, and excessive reporting requirements for Medicare.

He also highlighted a number of steps that could be taken to address physician shortages, including increasing the current residency cap, increasing funding for medical student loan repayment programs, and increasing practice opportunities for International Medical Graduates (IMGs).  He also highlighted the need for legislation to bring down New York’s exorbitant liability costs, which is a major deterrent to physicians considering relocating to or staying in New York to practice.  

Given the significant number of witnesses calling for scope of practice expansion to address worker shortages, he forcefully expressed that replacing physician care with non-physician care is NOT the answer to ensuring proper patient care.  He expressed great appreciation for the critical role placed by advanced care practitioners in helping to meet our care delivery demands, but emphasized the importance of maintaining supervision and collaboration, noting surveys on patient sentiment that show that 95% of patients believe it is important that a physician be involved with their diagnosis and treatment decisions, and various studies detailing the increased health care costs as a result of unsupervised care provided by non-physicians. 

During the Q&A portion, Dr. Pipia also answered numerous questions regarding proposals with which MSSNY has expressed concerns previously.  This includes legislation to permit New York to join the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact, and legislation that would permit Physician Assistants to practice without defined physician supervision after 8,000 hours of practice.