PAFP 2019-20 State Legislative Priorities Member Survey

The PAFP’s Government and Practice Advocacy Committee (GPAC) is about to release its current list of 2019-20 state legislative priorities. The PAFP is focusing its advocacy efforts on several areas of concern to family physicians in Pennsylvania, including prior authorization reform, direct primary care, and health insurer credentialing reform.

Below, you have the opportunity to rank these legislative priorities from 1 to 8, with 1 being the issue you most want the PAFP to pursue as a legislative priority. Your response to this survey will help guide PAFP advocacy and policy for the next year.

Question Title

* 1. Please arrange the following list of legislative priorities, placing at the top of the list the issues which you feel the PAFP should most focus its efforts in the coming year. You may drag and drop items to change the order or assign a numerical ranking for each with "1" indicating the highest priority and "8" signifying the lowest.

Nurse Practitioner Independence
Nurse practitioners (NPs) are integral, valuable members of the health care team, held in the highest regard by family physicians. However, patients are best served when a physician-led, highly coordinated health care team provides care. Therefore, the PAFP opposes legislation that would expand their scope of practice and eliminate collaborative agreements.

Prior Authorization Reform
Prior authorizations have become significantly burdensome to family physicians, and more importantly result in delays and jeopardized quality care to patients. The PAFP supports reforms that would maximize electronic communications for authorizations as well as adverse determinations, and define consistent response times for authorizations, rejections, appeals, and external utilization review.

Direct Primary Care (DPC) Authorizing Legislation
DPC is a model of care outside the bounds of health insurance and an emerging option for patients and physicians. The PAFP supports legislation that specifies direct primary care agreements are not insurance and therefore not subject to insurance laws or regulations.

Health Insurer Credentialing Reform
Delays in credentialing of new physicians or existing physicians changing practices create undue hardships most notably on the communities they serve. The PAFP supports legislation that would standardize the credentialing form and set processing standards.

Restrictive Covenants
In this age of health system consolidations, PAFP supports legislation limiting restrictive covenants in health care practitioner employment agreements.

Buprenorphine Medically Assisted Treatment Act
Access to care for patients suffering from substance abuse disorder is critical, and state regulation could significantly jeopardize access to office based opioid treatment (OBOT). The PAFP opposes legislation that would require prescribers of Buprenorphine to be licensed by the state and pay any state licensing fee.

POLST Legislation
Working with the Pennsylvania Medical Society, the PAFP supports updating and revising Pennsylvania law to include codification of Pennsylvania Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment (POLST) to be used by medical professionals across all health care settings for patients who voluntarily wish to execute a POLST order.

Workplace Accommodations for Nursing Mothers
The PAFP supports legislation that requires employers to provide employees time to express breast milk in a sanitary environment for her nursing child.