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Health news and issues in the Ozarks.

Mercy Physician Tapped for American Medical Association President in 2017

Dr. David Barbe
Mercy Springfield

An administrator for the Mercy health system has been named president-elect of the American Medical Association (AMA).

Dr. David Barbe is currently vice president of regional operations for Mercy Springfield Communities. He oversees five regional, rural Mercy hospitals, 90 clinic practices and more than 200 physicians and advanced practitioners in southwest Missouri and northwest Arkansas.

His selection by AMA members came earlier this week. Barbe will serve as president-elect through June 2017, after which he’ll assume the full role as president.

“With it being an election year, it’s such an important time for health care,” Dr. Barbe said in a news release. “We’re going to work hard to improve upon the Affordable Care Act and meet the needs of patients and doctors today, tomorrow and in the future.”

Barbe he has served as chairman of the AMA board of trustees, as well as a delegate from 1997 to 2009. He served two terms on the AMA Council on Medical Service. The release states that as chairman, Barbe participated in the development of much of the AMA policy on coverage of the uninsured, health care system reform, Medicare reform and health insurance market reform.

Barbe has been practicing medicine in Mountain Grove since 1983. In addition to his administrative role with Mercy, he tends to patients at the health system’s family medicine clinic in Mountain Grove.