July message: Growing our political advocacy.
VACEP’s delegation meets with Senator Timothy M. Kaine at this year’s Leadership & Advocacy Conference in Washington.
This week, a delegation of your Virginia ACEP peers took time to go to Washington, D.C. for the annual ACEP Leadership & Advocacy Conference. Though we were on-site, many of our meetings with Congressional representatives were held via video. Still, meeting in-person allowed us to see one another and emergency physicians from other chapters to build ideas and initiatives for our own organization.
We discussed the tough issues, including the recent workforce study, changes in telemedicine, health equity and human trafficking.
We spoke to our state representatives about supporting the Lorna Breen Act, and reducing barriers for providers seeking mental health support.
We discussed supporting the Mainstreaming Addiction Treatment (MAT) Act, to reduce barriers to prescribing buprenorphine to treat patients with opioid-use disorders.
And we talked about ways to avoid the impending Medicare "payment cliffs," to maintain provider reimbursement rates and not jeopardize access to care.
Here are links to ACEP overviews on each of these issues:
We were able to thank Senator Tim Kaine in person for his support over the past year, particularly on the Lorna Breen act.
Overall, it was great to see members and others in person and experience the kind of collaboration and problem solving we do best. To be in a room together, again, showed the power of in-person collaboration over video chats.
It was also great to welcome new and future emergency medicine leaders — new faces, new fellows — to our chapter and introduce them to the work we do. And, speaking of advocacy, we're kicking off a campaign to build funds in our Emergency Medicine Political Action Committee in Virginia (EMPAC-VA). I've recorded a message for you below, and keep an eye on your inbox and mailbox for more. You can also sign up now for the interest list for LAC 2022, May 1-4, 2022.
If you are looking for a way to get involved in VACEP, reach out to me anytime.
Sarah Marshall
VACEP Executive Director
