Health Provider Issues:

• In response to a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Call for Papers, the NMA drafted and submitted a white paper on pay-for-performance (P4P). Click here to read the NMA position paper on pay-4-performance. (2006)
  
  
• HMO Employment and African-American Physicians assesses the level and determinants of African American physicians’ employment in health maintenance organizations (HMOs), particularly early in their careers. Such an analysis is significant because, in most sectors of the economy, larger organizations consistently provide better jobs, higher pay, and improved career prospects. In contrast, staff- and group-model HMOs from the time period of this study have been associated with resource and autonomy constraints, ranking low in remuneration, prestige, and stability. The study suggests that the over-representation of African American physicians in staff- and group-model HMOs may contribute to the inequalities they experience. (August 2006, The Journal of the National Medical Association (JNMA))
  
  
• Physicians’ Ethical Responsibilities in Addressing Racial and Ethnic Healthcare Disparities explores the ethical obligations of individual physicians and the medical profession in addressing racial and ethnic disparities in health care. The article also discusses the need for physicians to recognize disparities and to critically examine their own practices to ensure that their clinical judgments are not adversely affected by issues of race and ethnicity. (August 2006, JNMA)
  
  
• Cultural Competence Primer is the National Medical Association’s guide to cultural competence and its role in the health care and social service fields. The guide focuses on defining cultural competence, describing how it affects health care, and suggesting how better cultural understanding can improve the health of diverse populations. In addition, the guide proposes a strategy for developing a national board for ethno-cultural medicine to improve health care delivery to people of color, and it provides recommendations for system-wide changes that could improve minority health. (2002)

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