In 1916, a handful of conservation advocates successfully lobbied Congress to create the National Park Service, which now protects more than 85 million acres of U.S. land. Dedicated rheumatology advocacy has lasting effects, too, as evidenced by several policy wins in 2021 and efforts underway for 2022.
The reassurance comes after ACR leadership sent a letter detailing how its prior authorization forms increased paperwork burden for many biologic drugs and hurt patients’ timely access to treatment.
Updated Dec. 16, 2021: In response to advocacy from the ACR and other provider and patient groups, Congress passed legislation to avoid the nearly 10% “Medicare cliff” scheduled to take effect Jan 1. The ACR thanks all ACR/ARP members and patients who took the time to engage in this critical effort with us to protect…
The ACR has long supported efforts to reduce drug prices through many of the provisions included in the House-passed version of the Build Back Better Act. However, the current wording of one provision puts patient access to Medicare Part B treatments at risk.
With a record-high 46 first-time contributors, this year’s matching campaign raised more than $26,000 from members and another $17,000 from volunteer leaders who made a pledge for each donor, advancing advocacy efforts on behalf of rheumatology.
The ACR will be working with the Senate as they consider and debate the important healthcare policies contained in this massive legislation.
After a year marked with rheumatology gains in evaluation and management valuation, as well as quality reporting, ongoing ACR efforts target impending Medicare reimbursement cuts and other practice challenges.
If passed, the ACR-led resolutions will direct the AMA to advocate for state-level pharmacy benefit manager reform and to fix broken Medicare Administrator Contractor processes. Several other specialties joined the ACR’s resolutions as supporting cosponsors.
The ACR’s advocacy efforts over the past year have helped put critical prior authorization and step therapy legislation in front of Congress. Learn more at ACR Convergence 2021.
Earlier this month, RheumPAC donors joined the Iowa representative, an ophthalmologist, for a virtual discussion about healthcare legislation and how it can help specialty providers and their patients.