APA Goes to Hill With Partners to Address Opioid Crisis

APA President-Elect Bruce Schwartz, M.D., joined colleagues and representatives from five other physician groups on June 18 to advocate on patients’ behalf in a series of meetings with congressional staffers on Capitol Hill (see above story). The groups, representing more than 560,000 frontline physicians and medical students known as the Group of Six, were advocating for bills that would address the opioid epidemic and provide regulatory relief of the administrative burdens faced by physicians as they treat their patients. Later that week, the House passed a broad opioid measure that now goes to the Senate.

Pictured (from left) are Lisa Hollier, M.D., president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists; Schwartz; Mark Baker, D.O., president of the American Osteopathic Association; Katie Meyer, senior policy staffer for House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.); Ana Maria Lopez, M.D., president of the American College of Physicians; and Michael Munger, M.D., president of the American Academy of Family Physicians. The American Academy of Pediatrics also participated in the meetings. ■

See also: “Group of Six Releases Principles for Addressing Opioid Crisis. ”