Providing Medical Leadership for Mind, Brain and Body Through Advocacy

When I worked in the Senate as a Congressional Health Policy fellow, I learned firsthand the importance of lobbying and advocacy. Part of my role was to meet with then U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman’s constituents and various advocacy groups and hear their concerns. They would hand me written documents with data about why their issue was important. I communicated their concerns to the senator and also kept the handouts and their contact information in our files for future reference. As bills were introduced, Sen. Lieberman and his staff would call on these contacts and relevant documents in deciding how to vote.

At our annual meeting this past May, APA unveiled a new logo with this tagline: “Medical leadership for mind, brain and body.” These seven words capture what we are trying to accomplish with our patients every day. I believe that in addition to directing treatment teams, medical leadership includes advocating on the state and federal levels on behalf of our members and our patients.

In a previous column, I updated you on APA’s advocacy efforts this past year on the national level, from the successful passage of the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans (SAV) Act to APA’s ongoing efforts to work with Congress on mental health legislation. There are bipartisan comprehensive mental health bills in both the House and the Senate now, and APA is supporting both of them. We have made great strides in our national advocacy thanks to APA’s government relations team, but there are ways for all of us to get further involved.

In late October APA is hosting a state advocacy conference in Florida, bringing in representatives from all of our district branches (DBs) and state associations (SAs) to collaborate and inform them on how they can best promote our viewpoints in their respective states. The members and DB/SA executives selected to attend this event will be better equipped to advocate our positions on the state level. As many of you are aware, state legislatures have vast powers over the practice of medicine, the transformation of delivery systems, and key programs for low-income and underserved populations. Likewise, state regulators and oversight bodies wield important influence over insurance products, parity enforcement, and other consumer protections.

There is another opportunity for even more members to become active advocates on behalf of APA. APA recently launched the Congressional Advocacy Network, or CAN for short. CAN is designed to help develop, train, and energize a national network of psychiatrists who will commit to communicate and build personal relationships with members of Congress. These psychiatrists will also speak to their representatives on behalf of APA on mental health issues. Our goal: recruit 535 psychiatrists to become congressional advocates and pair up with every member of the House and Senate. These congressional advocates will quickly deliver our message to Congress through direct, personal communication whenever issues relating to psychiatry come up.

If you are interested in the CAN initiative, please contact Ashley Mild at [email protected] or Adam Lotspike at [email protected]; both can be reached by phone at (703) 907-7800.

If we as psychiatrists want Congress to help us with reimbursement issues or help our patients truly get insurance coverage that is equal to their coverage for physical ailments, then we need to ensure that they hear us. If we don’t speak for ourselves, then Congress will listen to the many other voices that may not represent the best interests of psychiatry or mental health. These advocacy actions are part of medical leadership for mind, brain and body. ■