McLean, Virginia – The Emergency Department Practice Management Association (EDPMA) is concerned that payers are denying payments to emergency medicine physicians for essential and lifesaving care they provide to patients. EDPMA believes that emergency physicians should be able to deliver high-quality, cost effective care in the emergency department and that payers should reimburse highly-trained emergency physicians based on a patient’s presenting symptoms.
However, many payers prioritize profits over patient care with the systemic practice to unnecessarily delay, deny, or reduce payments. EDPMA believes this is wrong and advocates on the regulatory, federal, and state levels to combat this practice on behalf of its members.
EDPMA also supports the efforts of our member organizations to advocate on behalf of their emergency physicians, such as Fremont Emergency Services’ litigation to hold UnitedHealthcare accountable for its policy to withhold payment to ER doctors after services have been rendered. In this vein, we support our colleague’s efforts to advocate for emergency physicians and patients by any means necessary, including litigation.
“EDPMA continues to hold payers accountable for systemic practices that do not acknowledge or compensate for medical decision making in the emergency department,” says Don Powell, DO, FACEP, EDPMA Chair of the Board. “We strongly believe that emergency physicians should be fairly reimbursed for the delivery of emergency care, and payers should do their part to not undermine the emergency medical health care delivery system or the overall health of our healthcare system. EDPMA is in the business of emergency medicine and will continue to advocate for its members and patients.”
About EDPMA
The Emergency Department Practice Management Association (EDPMA) is the nation’s largest professional physician trade association focused on the delivery of high-quality, cost-effective care in the emergency department. EDPMA’s membership includes emergency medicine physician groups of all sizes, as well as billing, coding, and other professional support organizations that assist healthcare providers in our nation’s emergency departments. Together, EDPMA’s members deliver (or directly support) health care for about half of the 146 million patients that visit U.S. emergency
departments each year. Visit https://edpma.currentmediagroup.net.
Contact:
Cathey Wise
703.506.3282 (direct) l 817.905.3310 (cell)
cathey.wise@edpma.org