Dear Colleagues,

I promised to keep you abreast of the Academy’s advocacy efforts to advance Medicare physician payment reform and reduce administrative burdens for dermatologists.

We continue to strengthen relationships with leaders in the new administration, and I recently met with senior officials at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to discuss Medicare physician payment reform as well as other issues impacting dermatology. CMS leadership was receptive to our concerns and expressed interest in continuing the dialogue.

In addition to asking the agency to work with Congress to support Medicare payment reform, we discussed the following issues:

• CLIA Regulations – Expediting formal rulemaking to clarify that board-certified dermatologists fulfill the qualifications to serve as a CLIA laboratory director.
• MIPS Reform – Demanding less burdensome quality reporting and to pause the expansion of MIPS Value Pathways.
• Prescription Drug Access – Requiring more expedited decision timelines for prescription drug prior authorization requests, applying recent prior authorization reforms to prescriptions drugs, and ensuring that all processes are evidence-based development by independent experts.

This was a foundational meeting where CMS listened to the Academy’s concerns and its impact on patient care and health care access. This was in addition to the advocacy our professional DC staff does endlessly for our specialty and the patients we serve.

The AADA will continue to engage with policymakers across the administration and Congress to advance policies that support dermatologists and the patients we serve.

Sincerely,

Susan Taylor, MD, FAAD
AADA President