The AMA will stand behind any physician who believes he or she is prevented from fulfilling the ethical duties due to a gag clause or similar policy. AMA will review contracts upon request The AMA also is calling upon health plans to submit their managed care contracts for review to determine if they interfere with the physician-patient relationship. The AMA will review these contracts at no charge. Since the AMA's December 1995 meeting in Washington, D.C., and subsequent news media coverage, physicians and managed care plans have been approaching the AMA and requesting that its legal staff review their contracts to determine if they contain gag clauses. If that means referring patients to physicians outside their plans or telling patients about treatments their plans don't cover, so be it.
Patients are our foremost responsibility.
Their needs come before our needs and the needs of managed care plans. Physicians also can work with their state or local medical societies to determine whether gag clauses are present in their contracts.