12.18.23 OMA Board Book

AMA Interim 2023 Meeting (i23) Gaylord Hotel, National Harbor, MD 11/10/2023--11/14/2023

Dear OMA BOT, Thank you for again allowing me to serve as your AMA delegate. I attended the i23 meeting to represent the OMA, and therefore, I wanted to provide the board a brief update on the proceedings of the house of delegates (HOD) meeting. Dr. Lazarus convened and presided over the obesity caucus, which drew 22 attendees including AACE, The Endocrine Society, ASMBS, and members of the AMA BOT. A copy of the caucus minutes is included separately for your review. The interim meetings are intended to focus on advocacy only. This meeting had several hundred Resolution 806: Resolved, that our American Medical Association amend Policy H-150.953, “Obesity as a Major Public Health Problem,” by addition as follows: 9. Urge national payers to ensure coverage parity for FDA-approved anti-obesity 33 medications without exclusions or additional carve-outs. (Modify Current HOD 34 Policy) In addition, Dr. Carolynn Francavilla-Brown, alternate delegate for the state of Colorado and OMA BOT member, introduced a resolution through the private practice physician’s section aimed to prevent closed networks from diverting traffic away from specialists back to their own closed network, as a response to reports that CVS is not allowing patients with obesity to see their private practice providers, which reads as follows: Resolution 234: Resolved, that our American Medical Association take a strong public stance against allowing payors and pharmacy benefit managers to divert patients to their own care teams for medical care and medication prescribing (New HOD Policy); and be it further Resolved, that our AMA take immediate action (which may include legal or policy action) to assess and pursue appropriate measures designed to prevent payors and pharmacy benefit managers from diverting patients to their own care teams for medical care and medication prescribing (Directive to Act). Again, thank you for allowing me to continue to serve as your delegate to the AMA HOD. Additional policies referenced in the above resolutions are presented below for your review. Respectfully submitted, resolutions related to advocacy, and interestingly, two related to obesity. The HOD passed the following policy regarding coverage of AOMs:

Ethan Lazarus, MD, FOMA OMA Immediate Past-President Delegate, American Medical Association

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