Biden admin to pay bonus to 'anti-racist' doctors
Doctors who create and use an anti-racism plan could see higher Medicare reimbursements in 2022.
The policy echoes woke medical school initiatives as medical schools have led the field toward left-wing political ideologies.
In the new year, doctors who “create and implement an anti-racism plan” will be able to boost their Medicare reimbursement rates.
The Department of Health and Human Services published a notice in the Federal Register that includes several “improvement activities” that doctors can undertake in order to become eligible for increased Medicare reimbursement rates.
Building and using an anti-racism plan is one such activity.
HHS says, “the plan should include a clinic-wide review of existing tools and policies, such as value statements or clinical practice guidelines, to ensure that they include and are aligned with a commitment to anti-racism and an understanding of race as a political and social construct, not a physiological one.”
[RELATED: Echoing woke universities, CDC releases ‘non-stigmatizing language’ guide]
Medicare uses a Merit Based Incentive Payment System, or MIPS, to adjust the payments that clinicians receive from their Medicare Part B claims. The MIPS score is made up of four categories, one of which is “improvement activities.”
Doctors seeking credit for their anti-racism efforts should, according to HHS, write plans that “identify ways in which issues and gaps identified in the review can be addressed and should include target goals and milestones for addressing prioritized issues and gaps.”
HHS says that an “eligible clinician or practice can also consider including in their plan ongoing training on anti-racism and/or other processes to support identifying explicit and implicit biases in patient care and addressing historic health inequities experienced by people of color.”
The push for social justice healthcare has its roots in medical schools. As Campus Reform has reported, eleven medical schools are participating in a three-year “Anti-Racist Transformation in Medical Education” program.
[RELATED: 2021 in review: Medical schools’ push for social justice health care]
Earlier this year, the Journal of the American Medical Association erupted in controversy when two staff members questioned if structural racism is real.
The new initiative from HHS is far from the first time higher education has influenced the nation’s highest medical authorities. Earlier this year, the CDC debuted a preferred terms guide which includes many of the recommendations made by college language guides, such as avoiding terms like “homeless” and “uninsured.”
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