AMGA Urges HHS Secretary Kennedy to Cut Administrative Waste, Promote Innovation, and Ensure Payment Stability

Recommendations Offered from MACRA and Value-Based Care Task Force as Blueprint to Transform Medicare into a Sustainable, Patient-Centered System

Alexandria, VA – AMGA today sent a comprehensive letter to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., outlining a bold set of regulatory and legislative priorities aimed at modernizing the nation’s healthcare delivery system by reducing administrative complexity and waste, promoting innovation, and ensuring long-term payment stability for the physicians and providers caring for millions of Americans.

“Our goal is simple: ensure HHS regulations reflect how care is delivered today and not the healthcare landscape of the 1960s,” said Jerry Penso, MD, MBA, president and CEO of AMGA. “Physicians and their care teams are spending too much time navigating outdated, burdensome rules instead of focusing on their patients. This has a real cost.”

AMGA provided detailed recommendations on several key priorities designed to eliminate administrative waste, promote innovation in care delivery, and ensure long-term payment stability.  

Reducing Administrative Waste and Complexity
AMGA called for significant reform of prior authorization (PA) requirements, which it said delay access to medically necessary care and impose substantial administrative costs. The letter supports “gold carding” for high-performing providers and urges accelerated decision timeframes and greater transparency from payers.  AMGA also urged the Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy to revise “immediate resulting” rules for patient health information, citing instances where patients received serious diagnoses, including cancer and miscarriage, through automated portal notifications before their physicians could provide counseling or context.

Promoting Innovation in Care Delivery
AMGA urged HHS to eliminate, where possible, the outdated Medicare three-day inpatient stay requirement for skilled nursing facility coverage, arguing it restricts timely access to appropriate post-acute care. The letter also called for permanent extension of pandemic-era telehealth flexibilities, including payment parity, audio-only visit coverage, and the ability to prescribe controlled substances via telehealth.

For alternative payment models (APMs), AMGA recommended that CMS preserve voluntary participation, streamline quality measurement, and harmonize reporting requirements to protect team-based care coordination and investment in value-based infrastructure.

Ensuring Long-Term Payment Stability
AMGA called the current Medicare Physician Fee Schedule framework “broken and unsustainable,” urging Congress and HHS to pursue comprehensive reform that provides predictable, inflation-adjusted payment updates reflecting actual practice costs.

Implementing Recommendations from the MACRA Task Force Report 
AMGA also shared recommendations from its MACRA and Value-Based Care Task Force, convened over two years with practicing physician executives from across the country. The Task Force produced consensus-based policy recommendations organized around six pillars: enhancing patient engagement, improving health outcomes, protecting patient dignity at end of life, removing regulatory barriers, supporting rural and underserved providers, and ensuring the long-term sustainability of high-value care.

AMGA reiterated its readiness to meet with Secretary Kennedy and HHS leadership to discuss its recommendations in greater detail.

The letter and supporting materials are available on the AMGA website. 

###

About AMGA
AMGA is a trade association leading the transformation of healthcare in America. Representing multispecialty medical groups and integrated systems of care, we advocate, educate, innovate, and empower our members to deliver the next level of high-performance health. AMGA is the national voice promoting awareness of our members’ recognized excellence in the delivery of coordinated, high-quality, high-value care. More than 175,000 physicians practice in our member organizations, delivering care to one in three Americans.