APMA has formally called on the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) to end its routine misclassification of podiatrists as non-physician practitioners in Medicare analyses and reports.
Federal law is clear: Doctors of podiatric medicine are physicians under the Medicare statute. Despite this, MedPAC continues to group podiatrists with non-physician providers in influential publications, undermining the accuracy of its workforce, access, and payment analyses. This misclassification distorts the true size and role of the Medicare physician workforce and ignores the essential care podiatric physicians provide to older adults and patients with chronic conditions such as diabetes and vascular disease.
APMA urged MedPAC to immediately correct its methodology and ensure podiatric physicians are consistently included as physicians in all current and future work.
Read the letter at www.apma.org/Commentletters. Contact the APMA Advocacy team with any questions at advocacy@apma.org.