UAFP goes to Washington

Last week, AAFP held the Family Medicine Advocacy Summit (FMAS) in Washington, D.C., with UAFP CEO and member of the AAFP Commission on Federal and State Policy, Maryann Martindale in attendance.

It was a quick but productive few days, meeting with legislators, learning from AAFP and other various policy and elected representatives about the current budget negotiations and other policy issues related to family medicine.

The final day was spent on Capitol Hill meeting with legislative healthcare staff members during which Maryann was able to meet with the healthcare advisors to Senator John Curtis and Representative Celeste Maloy. She also met with with Representative and family physician, Mike Kennedy, after also introducing him as the keynote speaker in a previous session.

There is a lot of well-founded fear about the current budget billl, and it was critical for UAFP to voice our concerns. Efforts were focused on three primary issues:

• Strengthening and Protecting Medicaid – In Utah we are at risk of over 100,000 Utahns losing coverage either through Medicaid or the proposed changes to the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
• Ensuring Financial Stability for Family Physicians – If you provide care for Medicaid/Medicare patients you already know the impact of the reduction in payment rates.
• Improving Access to Primary Care – Proposals include capping medical student loans at $200,000 (below the current average loan debt) and eliminating the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program (PSLF) for physicians. Both deeply concerning and will have a significant and negative impact on primary care workforce.

We continue our outreach to our federal delegation and urge you to contact your own representatives. Although a vote is imminent, we will never stop fighting for you family physicians and their patients!