While the purpose of our jobs is to provide orthotic and prosthetic devices to our patients, there are a lot of things that happen behind the scenes to make that happen. This includes everything from coordinating insurance benefits for device coverage to custom fabrication of the devices. We are in a fairly small, unknown field to the rest of the world, so in order to ensure that we can continue to treat patients in our communities with the best care, we need to ensure that the regulations from the government will allow us to do so. This means advocating to Congress on behalf of our staff, patients, and the larger community.
Each year, the American Orthotic & Prosthetic Association (AOPA) organizes a Policy Forum. This event aims to create an organized effort for our voices to be heard in Congress. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, this annual conference in Washington, DC, was attended by individuals across the country, where they would learn about proposed legislative efforts at the federal level to support orthotic and prosthetic (O&P) care. The first day of the forum was spent teaching individuals about the different legislative issues, proposed/introduced bills, and how to lobby members of Congress. The second day was spent on the Hill in Washington DC, meeting with members of Congress and their staffers, urging them to support the bills and by extension, their O&P constituents.
This year was Sheryl N Sachs’ (CPO) 5th year participating in the Policy Forum. Sheryl initially became interested in O&P policy in 2015. At that time, Medicare contractors had proposed substantial changes to their policy, which would significantly limit prosthetic patients’ access to care. The O&P field came together and was able to fight against the proposal, and ultimately prevented it from passing. Seeing how important policy was, Sheryl attended her first policy forum in 2016, and has been active in both our company, as well as the community, to be a voice for our patients.
This past April, AOPA’s Policy Forum was held virtually, and Sheryl was joined by both Amy Smith (Executive Assistant) and Marlies Berli Cabel, CPO, in participating. During the two weeks of the Forum, they met with staffers for both of Maryland’s US Senators (Senator Cardin and Senator Van Hollen), and Maryland’s US Representatives (Representative Trone, Representative Sarbanes, and Representative Ruppersberger), to urge them to support the Medicare O&P Patient-Centered Care Act.
We are very excited to announce that as a result of one of our meetings, Representative Dutch Ruppersberger has signed on as a co-sponsor for the bill! We sincerely thank the Congressman for his support of our patients, to ensure that they have access to appropriate orthotic and prosthetic care. We hope that the rest of our senators and representatives will follow his lead.
So what can we learn from this? Everyone can be an advocate! And we still have a lot of work to do. We are a small field, but all of our voices together can be very powerful. To learn more about the Medicare O&P Patient-Centered Care Act, please click here. It isn’t too late to reach out to your own representatives and ask for their support! For more information, please visit the AOPA action center, here. Add your voice!
Sheryl N Sachs, CPO