Last week, the AAMC issued a statement regarding the 2019 Medicare Outpatient Prospective Payment and Ambulatory Payment Systems (OPPS) final rule released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). A two-year phase-in of a 60% reduction in Medicare reimbursements to excepted off-campus provider-based departments “threatens access to care for Medicare beneficiaries and disproportionately harms low-income, vulnerable patients and the institutions that serve them,” said Darrell G. Kirch, MD, AAMC president and CEO

The AAMC also issued a statement last week on the CMS’s Medicare Physician Fee Schedule and Quality Payment Program final rule. Kirch noted that the rule “will significantly reduce burden for physicians and other health care professionals, allowing them more time to focus on patients.” While the AAMC will continue to review the rule, it appreciates that the CMS acknowledged “concerns about the importance of appropriate payments for complex patients.”

William L. Roper, MD, MPH, has been named interim president of the University of North Carolina (UNC) system, effective Jan. 1, 2019. He currently serves as dean of the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Medicine and CEO of UNC Health Care, and had previously announced he would step down from those roles in May 2019. He has served as dean, CEO, and vice chancellor for medical affairs since 2004.