Advocacy Internship Reflections by Dr. Deepti Mahajan

Deepti Mahajan, MD

PGY 2
Internal Medicine
Northwell Health Northshore LIJ

As a resident physician witnessing the rapidly evolving landscape of healthcare delivery, I am drawn to the NYACP Advocacy Internship Program as an opportunity to bridge the gap between clinical practice and policy reform. The past decade has challenged our healthcare system in unprecedented ways – from navigating a global pandemic to addressing the complex needs of an aging population and integrating revolutionary technologies. These challenges have highlighted the critical importance of having physicians actively engaged in shaping the policies that govern our practice.

My interest in advocacy stems from firsthand experience with medicine's growing administrative burden. As an internal medicine resident, I was shocked by an AMA report revealing that we spend the fewest weekly hours on direct patient care—just 23.1—while logging the highest hours on indirect administrative tasks among all specialties. This troubling reality reflects a broader issue: rising administration costs contrast sharply with cuts in federal medical budgets, affecting both care quality and physician well-being. These figures represent countless missed patient interactions and directly contribute to increasing burnout rates across our profession.

Through the NYACP Advocacy Internship, I seek to develop a deeper understanding of how policy reforms addressing administrative burden are conceived, debated, and implemented. The internship would provide invaluable exposure to the legislative process behind regulatory relief initiatives and help me develop the skills necessary to become an effective physician advocate. I aim to learn how to effectively communicate the hidden costs of administrative burden to policymakers and work collaboratively toward solutions that would return physicians to focusing on their primary role: patient care. Healthcare administration has reached such complexity that practices increasingly outsource administrative tasks to third-party services to maintain compliance with federal and state regulations. Under the stress of these mandates on community and hospital practices, policies have emerged to address these concerns—particularly surrounding prior authorization requirements, electronic health record systems, and documentation mandates—areas that directly affect clinical workflow, consume physician time, and impact patient care quality. The current regulatory environment has created conditions where healthcare professionals are increasingly pulled away from bedside care to satisfy documentation requirements, obtain necessary approvals, navigate cumbersome EHR systems, and complete redundant paperwork.

I hope to learn from key stakeholders about their approaches to advocacy for administrative simplification and understand the nuanced discussions that shape healthcare reform. I believe that effective healthcare policy must be informed by the perspectives of practicing physicians who understand the daily challenges of patient care and administrative requirements. As healthcare becomes increasingly complex, it's crucial for reform to be accessible, demystified, and reflective of physician concerns regarding time spent away from patients. We need policies that measure success not by documentation completeness but by meaningful patient outcomes and physician sustainability.

Understanding the mechanics of policy reform will be essential as I pursue my interest in healthcare administration and seek to contribute to meaningful change in our healthcare system—one that allows physicians to practice at the top of their license rather than being constrained by administrative tasks.