SAN DIEGO—During the past year, ACR advocacy staff and volunteer leaders have been working on a range of pressing rheumatology issues. In an advocacy update session at ACR Convergence 2023, panelists described progress in multiple areas, including access to care and workforce issues.
The presentations conveyed how full the ACR’s slate of advocacy efforts has been and how important it is for rheumatologists and rheumatology health professionals to become more involved in those efforts. The ACR’s advocacy efforts include several volunteer committees: the Government Affairs Committee, the primary advocacy committee that determines the ACR’s policy priorities; the Committee on Rheumatologic Care (CORC), which works on policies specifically related to the practice of rheumatology and provides resources for practices; CORC’s Insurance Subcommittee, which directly interacts with payers on behalf of the ACR and members of the College; the Affiliate Society Council, a group of representatives of state and local rheumatology societies that tracks what is happening legislatively at the state level; and RheumPAC, the ACR’s political action committee, which focuses on fundraising.
A Personal Touch
ACR staffers attended 120 Congressional meetings and sent 36 letters to Congress in the past year, said Lennie Shewmaker McDaniel, JD, the ACR’s director of congressional affairs. The ACR is smaller than the American Medical Association and other specialty societies and organizations, she said, but it can make more of an impact politically than organizations that don’t represent voters in legislators’ districts.
The ACR represents community practitioners, she noted, providers who may sponsor a local baseball team or have kids in the same schools or activities as children of the Congressional representatives the ACR is interacting with. “We actually represent human beings that they interface with in their communities,” she said.
The policy priorities for 2023 included Medicare reimbursement, barriers to care access, the rheumatology workforce shortage, drug pricing, and telehealth and research funding, said Ms. McDaniel.
She encouraged ACR members to send letters to Congress about issues they feel are important, saying such contacts lay the groundwork for future ACR meetings with legislators. “All of this loosens the ground,” she said. “So don’t think your letters just go into some black box.”
She described an environment in Congress that makes it especially challenging to get legislation passed. For example, an ostensibly non-contentious appropriations bill in the House was held up when a small group of lawmakers wanted to include language to interfere with implementation of a law regarding the use of family planning benefits that had already been passed in Washington, D.C.
