OK, I love advocacy work and the National MS Society so when I can combine the two…all the better. This year I once again attended the Public Policy Conference in Washington , DC Alexandria
After getting to sleep at 2 am, I had a 6 am wake up call to be at a breakfast for Government Relations Committee Chairs. Yes I do it all, state advocate, federal advocate, local walk manager, support group coordinator but I digress. Anyway, at the GRC breakfast we discussed health care issues and split into regions to discuss what we are doing in our chapters. After that were the briefings on the other two issues.
One of the issues we took to the hill was introduced in the house and senate Monday, March 7. It is HB 883/S495 The Adult Achievement Center Enhancement Act. It allows for funds to survey for Adult Achievement centers. Most of the current adult centers cater to an older population (65+) with Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, etc. and MS is showing to be a younger persons (ages 20-50) disease. These achievement centers would have physical therapists, occupational therapy, speech therapy, RN’s, social workers, nutritionists, etc. a whole team of people to treat the whole person. They also cover maintenance not only on the person but on their equipment such as wheelchairs. Insurances don’t cover these usually. There are successful centers in Seattle , Minnesota , New York
The other thing was to find someone in the house to back a bill for Access to Neurological Care. We request that Congress support legislation that would allow neurologists to qualify for Medicare payment incentives, in order to improve access to these providers for people living with multiple sclerosis (MS). This legislation will correct an omission in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (H.R. 3590), which led to the exclusion of neurology from the list of specialties eligible to receive the Medicare payment incentives. A bill to change this provision will be introduced by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and cosponsored by Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME).
MS is an unpredictable, often disabling disease of the central nervous system, which
interrupts the flow of information both within the brain, and between the brain and
body. Symptoms range from numbness and tingling to blindness and paralysis.
Due to the complex and unpredictable nature of the disease, many people with MS
depend on neurologists to coordinate their care and and act as their primary care
physicians throughout their life. In order to ensure that individuals have appropriate access to primary care physicians, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act included a specific provision to attract more physicians to primary care specialties as increased demand
is expected. Specifically, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act provides a
bonus to physicians who: (i) specialize in family medicine, internal medicine, geriatric
medicine; pediatric medicine and (ii) have allowed charges for evaluation and
management services that account for at least 60 percent of the physician’s or
practitioner’s total allowed charges. Most neurology practices are heavily focused on patient evaluation, management and coordination of care for those living with neurological conditions, like MS.
Well, Wednesday was the long day on the hill but for us and many that we talked to during the day, it was a successful day. I also spoke as a mother on the cancellation of our local high school NJROTC program and invited our congress people and senators to attend a local rally, as well as our May 1 walk MS. I urge everyone to call or write your congress people and senators about the above bills and urge them to join the MS Caucus if they have not already done so.
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