Gov Hochul’s State of the State Address
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Colleagues:
We appreciate Governor Hochul’s focus in this week’s State of the State message on protecting the ability of our patients to receive needed care, including efforts to protect subsidized health insurance coverage, ensure New York’s immunization coverage requirements are based on the recommendation of learned physician organizations, and reduce the hassles patients and their physicians experience with burdensome health plan pre-authorization and re-authorization requirements that interfere with needed patient care and treatment.
However, as we work to enhance access, we also need to ensure we protect the ability of patients to receive quality care. In this regard, we remain significantly concerned with some of the proposals announced this week, including proposals to remove the important oversight provided by county medical societies in reviewing physician applications for participation in the Workers’ Compensation program and proposals to eliminate the important oversight physicians provide over care provided by physician assistants. Study after study show non-physician scope expansion increases care costs, leads to unnecessary testing, and does not increase access in rural areas. More troubling recent studies show these providers frequently change their specialty without undergoing the proper additional training. Without physician oversight and access to patients, care will become more fragmented and quality will decline. We need to preserve physician led team care for patients.
We look forward to seeing further details regarding these proposals and working with the Governor and the Legislature to ensure our patients have access to quality care in a timely manner from the physician of their choice.
Thank you.
All the best,
David Jakubowicz, MD, FACS
MSSNY President
