You loquaciously summarize, accurately surmise, and as always surprise me with the clarity of your thought, crispness of your argument, and the playful candor of your words. You also happen to be 100% correct about the failure of the house of medicine to align and engage in the political process at the local, regional, and national level.

See you at a Cafe soon.

Thanks for your response. I believe the AMA needs to continue to demonstrate the commitment you describe, continue to be inclusive to new voices and now models, and ensure complete transparency in all of its activities in order to garner the trust and respect of the other 500K practicing physicians in the country. I think Dr. Palestrant’s recent CPT argument is much stronger than the original rant against AMA. I would be interested in your response to his CPT viewpoint . . . looking forward to actively contributing and following along in the conversation.

We need to set the record straight on the information in Dr. Palestrant’s post. The truth is that AMA membership numbers are public information, and there has been no precipitous decline in AMA membership over the last two years, as Dr. Palestrant suggests. With about a quarter million members, the AMA is the largest physician organization in the country, and through the AMA House of Delegates, comprised of elected physician and medical student representatives from all state and national medical specialty societies, it is the only physician organization that gives all physicians a voice in the future of medicine.

Twice a year the AMA House of Delegates meets to debate and vote on in public the most important policy matters facing medicine today. Last month, for example, the AMA House of Delegates met to vote on key elements of health system reform. It was a vigorous debate that ended with the following declaration of commitment: AMA supports health system reform alternatives consistent with principles of pluralism, freedom of choice, freedom of practice and universal access for patients.

At that same meeting, President Obama chose to give his major health reform speech to AMA physicians. Not only has President Obama shown that AMA physicians are integral to the health reform process, but a recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll shows that the American people trust physician groups like the AMA to do the right thing on health reform as well.

Our advocacy on behalf of physicians is well documented and unfailing. We are actively engaged to permanently fix the broken Medicare physician payment system and have a big victory on that this week. We also continue to advocate for antitrust reform, medical liability reforms, a streamlined insurance claims processing system, and so much more to safeguard the patient-physician relationship. As for relationships with insurers, we continue our high-profile fight against insurer abuses that hurt physicians and patients. More details on AMA’s advocacy on the behalf of physicians and patients is easily found at the links above and on our Web site: http://www.ama-assn.org.

As for Dr. Palestrant’s sudden “change of heart” regarding the AMA, one can only speculate. He ardently courted the AMA when launching his business two years ago, and now he expresses scorn immediately following the end of that business relationship. The AMA door is always open to Dr. Palestrant and all physicians who would like to join with us to make a positive difference in medicine – especially those who feel their views differ from the policies set by the physicians of the House of Delegates. We urge you to join with us to make a positive difference in the lives of physicians and patients in our nation.

Will be interesting to see what develops, and how intense the battle becomes. He makes very valid points about the AMA, yet surely there’s enough time and equity for a behemoth like AMA to retrench and regroup. Not easy to change with that much history and legacy, though.

What I find most intriguing about SERMO is that it’s not necessarily just a lounge. Clearly dialogue happens there that impacts clinical practice, be it collective dialogue or person-to-person. In the daily life of a physiciansm that’s a more powerful value proposition than AMA offers at this point — never mind the big-picture issues that physicians battle the AMA on.