Advocacy Priorities

Advocacy PrioritiesMAFP's advocacy agenda supports public policies that underlie the Academy’s mission and vision—to ensure all Michigan residents have access to quality, affordable healthcare within a family physician-led medical home. Our efforts seek to enhance recognition for family physicians and result in a positive, productive legislative and regulatory climate for the primary care community.

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Increasing Access to Healthcare for All

  • Healthcare coverage for all Michigan residents with guaranteed access to a family physician who can provide comprehensive, compassionate, and continuous care
  • Dedicated state funding to ensure successful continuation of the Healthy Michigan Plan
  • Increased Medicaid primary care physician payment rates to 100% of Medicare levels and making any increase permanent
  • Mental health parity and reforms to the delivery of mental healthcare in Michigan, specifically implementation of reimbursement mechanisms that recognize the important role of family physicians in treating mental illness as well as the significant issues of comorbidity that require non-psychiatric care
  • Appropriate payment for physician telehealth services that are medically necessary, safe and effective, and provided in accordance with accepted standards of medical practice
  • Increase access to substance use disorder services for all

Investing in the Primary Care Workforce

  • Policies and incentives that help alleviate medical school loan debt, making the family medicine specialty more attractive to aspiring physicians
  • State and federal funding for the Michigan State Loan Repayment Program (MSLRP)
  • Reforms that encourage high participation in the MSLRP and maximize resources in the geographic areas of most need
  • Sustained state and federal funding for Graduate Medical Education and the MIDOCs program
  • Reforms that prioritize funding for primary care training in community-based settings and underserved areas, such as those modeled after the Teaching Health Center Graduate Medical Education Program

Preserving Physician-led Team-based Care

  • Oppose legislation that calls for licensing non-physician providers to deliver care independent of physicians
  • Protect patient safety and health by ensuring care provided by non-physician providers is supervised by physicians

Reforming the Payment & Delivery System

  • State adoption of innovative payment and delivery models that will help lower costs, improve quality, and expand access to primary care over the long-term by all payers
  • Reforms that seek to reduce the income disparity between primary care physicians and other specialists
  • Seek to establish collaboratives with other medical groups to address issues such as payment reform
  • Preserving telemedicine policies and payment

 Preserving Public Health & Safety

  • Reducing tobacco use in Michigan by maintaining FDA authority to regulate the manufacture, sale, labeling, distribution, and marketing of tobacco products, including e-cigarettes
  • Maintaining state requirements for education as a condition of obtaining a non-medical vaccination waiver and opposing legislative efforts that undermine existing state authority to regulate vaccinations and protect public health
  • Work toward state mandate for recording and reporting of all adult immunizations
  • Opposing legislation that would allow concealed carry in ‘gun-free’ zones, including hospitals and healthcare facilities, and promote responsible ownership
  • Continue to promote gun safety as a public health issue
  • Combating the opioid epidemic, including placing an emphasis on prescriber education and initiatives that help curb diversion, such as community take-back programs as well as expanding access to substance use disorder treatment
  • Promote family physicians as a resource in maintaining maternity care and access to women's healthcare, including full-spectrum reproductive services