White coats in Congress: Hundreds of DOs, students meet with U.S. lawmakers

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En route to one of her appointments, pediatrician Laura S. Stiles, DO, stressed that effective advocacy entails more than annual visits to lawmakers. “We have to communicate with them as often as possible,” insisted Dr. Stiles, a DO Day veteran from Rockwall, Texas.

During her meeting with Kyle Oliver, the legislative director for U.S. Rep. Ralph M. Hall, LLB, R-Texas, Dr. Stiles pressed the need for tort reform and the HEALTH Act.

“I heard at our AOA briefing this morning that every resident in Obstetrics and gynecology can figure on getting sued at least once during residency,” Dr. Stiles explained to Oliver.

Aside from limiting punitive damages and lawyers’ contingency fees, the HEALTH Act calls for setting the statute of limitations for medical liability at three years after an injury or one year after the claimant discovers the injury, whichever occurs later. In addition, the measure would allow for periodic payment of damages rather than lump sum payments.

The HEALTH Act also would prohibit levying punitive damages against a health care professional who prescribes or dispenses medical products for uses approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or naming a clinician in a class-action lawsuit against the manufacturer, distributor or seller of an FDA-approved medical product.

More GME slots

At noon, AOA Trustee Boyd R. Buser, DO, and Katherine T. Hindman, OMS I, arrived for their meeting with U.S. Rep. Edward Whitfield, JD, R-Ky.

“The GME cap is a throttle on the projected need for more primary care physicians,” argued Dr. Buser, the vice president and dean of the Pikeville (Ky.) College School of Osteopathic Medicine. Dr. Buser supplied Whitfield with an AOA briefing paper that forecasts a shortage of 45,000 primary care physicians by 2020. In addition, the brief predicts that the number of Medicare beneficiaries will double within the next two decades.

To head off the impending crisis, the AOA recommends that in addition to eliminating the GME cap, Congress should limit new funded slots to primary care, general surgery and other needed specialties.

In addition, Dr. Buser asked the congressman to support eliminating the provision of the Affordable Care Act that requires consumers to obtain prescriptions when they want to use their flexible spending or other tax-deferred accounts for purchasing OTC medications. The AOA maintains that the provision adds to physicians’ administrative burdens and often forces patients to make unnecessary visits to their physicians’ offices for prescriptions that the FDA has already deemed safe for OTC distribution.

“We think the provision is bad, and we presume you’ll support repealing it when the opportunity comes,” Dr. Buser said.

“Yes, absolutely,” answered Whitfield, who earlier this year co-sponsored the House bill to repeal the health care reform law.

The DO difference

During their visit with U.S. Rep. Hansen Clarke, JD, D-Mich., AOA Immediate Past President Larry A. Wickless, DO, Slaughter of MSUCOM and Michigan Osteopathic Association Executive Director Kris Nicholoff discussed DOs’ responsibility to address all aspects of their patients’ lives.

“I’m very interested in primary care, so I want to build my patients’ health from the very basics: exercise, eating right and taking care of themselves,” said Slaughter. “I want to help my patients select healthy foods to buy at the grocery store.”

“Probably one of the reasons we have these rising health care costs and chronic diseases is that people don’t have access to fresh fruits and vegetables,” Clarke said. “I’m generalizing, I know, but it seems that MDs don’t have that type of approach to patients in terms of looking at the whole human experience.”

Shortly after that exchange, an alarm sounded. Clarke had to leave to vote on the House floor. Before he left, he asked, “Is there any legislative initiative you want us to take a look at?”

Dr. Wickless handed him the AOA briefing book. As he scanned the issue papers, Clarke paused at the document calling for an end to the SGR formula of calculating physicians’ Medicare reimbursement. Because the SGR is largely based on the growth of the country’s gross domestic product because and physician expenses have grown much quicker than the GDP, the methodology is flawed, the AOA argues. While physician payments have remained static since 2001, practice costs have increased more than 25%, according to the AOA’s issue brief.

Clarke looked up from the document and said, “Oh, the SGR. Yes, I agree with you, totally.”

Truthful advertising

During their meeting with Lisette Partelow, health legislative aide to U.S. Rep. Dave Loebsack, PhD, D-Iowa, Leslie Kramer, DO, and Kevin Vincent de Regnier, DO, asked that the congressman support the Healthcare Truth and Transparency Act.

The bill would require all health care professionals to detail their credentials, Dr. de Regnier explained. “The AOA has conducted surveys showing that consumers are very confused about the qualifications and training of those providing their care,” he said. Someone with a PhD in nursing, for instance, could mislead patients with a sign or ad listing only the title Doctor.”

The point of the bill, Dr. de Regnier said, is to “empower consumers to make knowledgeable choices about their health care providers.”

First-timers, all-timers

With their congressional visits completed, Mark T. Rose, OMS I, and Andrew G. Little, OMS III, stood at the corner of Independence Avenue and South Capitol Street, talking about their first DO Day. “It was better than I thought it would be,” said Little, who like Rose attends the Ohio University of Osteopathic Medicine in Athens. “I’ve always viewed politicians as people who don’t pay attention to what people want once they’re elected. But that wasn’t the case today. I felt like they listened and actually cared.”

Asked whether they anticipated getting politically involved when they were thinking about attending medical school, they both said they never gave it a thought. “I didn’t consider it until I got involved with clubs in medical school and figured that attending DO Day would be a good way to understand how politics and medicine are intertwined,” Rose said. School clubs, Little agreed, provided insight into the importance of being politically involved.

And do they see political involvement as a career-long necessity? “Yes,” Little said. “It’s got to be. What is the saying, ‘If you don’t get involved, you can’t complain’?”