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January 2012 Update
The month
of January is a busy one for advocacy, at least as far as
administrative work goes. In order to employ a lobbyist,
AK-PA has to annually register with the Alaska Public
Offices Commission (APOC) and file quarterly lobbying
reports. So in January every year I see that AK-PA gets
properly registered, take my on-line lobbying ethics
training as the Association’s representative, and file the
fourth quarter lobbyist employer’s report for last year. I’m
pleased to say all those activities have been completed and
that AK-PA is in compliance with APOC regulations. I would
like to acknowledge the American Psychological Association
Practice Organization (APAPO) whose grant funding through
the Committee on the Advancement of Professional Psychology
(CAPP) helps make it possible for AK-PA to have a lobbying
presence in Juneau and on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C.
By the way,
APAPO in part and CAPP in whole are funded through the
special assessment fees that most of us pay as part of our
annual dues to APA each year. It is nice to know some of
that money we all pay comes back to Alaska to assist us in
practicing professional psychology.This year we have a quiet
agenda related to in-state lobbying. At this time we have no
legislation we need to craft or lobby for passage. So most
of our lobbyist’s activities this legislative session should
be in monitoring legislation and providing the association
notice of and information about pending legislation related
to providing services within a psychologist’s or
psychological associate’s scope of practice or mental health
related services in general.
Phil Baker,
the AK-PA State Legislative Liaison, and I do plan to visit
Juneau in February on behalf of the Association where we
will schedule meetings with targeted members of the House
and Senate that are not likely to be affected by elections
in this coming November. This allows us to further our
relationships with legislators by offering to serve as a
resource based on our expertise and knowledge of mental
health service provision (while not having ulterior motives
of seeking support for specific legislation) so that in the
future when we do go to Juneau with specific requests we
already have established relationships.
On the
Federal level, it never seems to be a quiet year. Given the
climate in D. C., I suspect you can expect a number of
requests to send lobby messages to our delegation there
related to specific legislation in the Senate or House.
Various aspects of Medicare legislation are likely to
continue to take center stage. Medicare ends up being a
driver for the emphasis state’s place on their Medicaid
expenditures and directly effects private insurance in a big
way.
So I hope
you will consider taking the two minutes it takes to send
lobbying messages this year when I forward "Action Alerts"
on from the APAPO’s Government Relations division. APAPO is
thought to have one of the premier grassroots lobbying
organizations in the country and it’s all because
thoughtful, involved, and concerned individuals like you are
willing to take that two minutes and tell our elected
officials how you would like to be represented through their
votes. Regardless of how you might feel about any or all of
our delegation members in Washington, AK-PA has had
remarkable success in obtaining their votes to support the
professional practice of psychology.
2011 Federal Advocacy Summary
Dr. Robert Lane, Federal Advocacy Coordinator
The Federal Advocacy Coordinator (FAC) is one
of the very few invitee. to the State Leadership Conference
(SLC) with airfare and hotel paid for by APA’s Practice
Organization (APAPO). To give credit where credit is due,
the conference is actually funded by the Committee for the
Advancement of Professional Psychology (CAPP) which is
funded in part (if not in whole?) by the practice assessment
we pay when we pay our APA dues each year. CAPP also awards
AKPA an organizational grant each year that helps us fund
the Executive Director and lobbyist positions. Alaskan
psychologists have actually done well in seeing a relatively
large percentage of the practice assessment fees paid come
back to them in the form of grants to help fund our state
association’s budget. But back to the SLC, as the FAC, I
attend several meetings that are related to advocacy in
general. The advocacy workshops are typically about building
and maintaining a grassroots advocacy network and then the
importance of political giving. The same was true this year.
General Advocacy - The APAPO is consistently
nationally recognized in the field of advocacy as having one
of the best grassroots lobbying networks for an organization
it’s size. Tens of thousands of emails are generated from
those “Alert - Action Required” emails I have forwarded to
you over the years. FACs are encouraged to develop personal
relationships with our congressional delegation and also to
identify “key contacts” who also have a relationship members
of congress or key staffers. As the emails are hitting, the
FACs and key contacts are directly making those contacts
with the same message. It has proved to be an effective
grassroots lobbying force. A goal for AKPA has been to mimic
what APAPO has taught us to do on the federal level here on
the state level. There are a number of issues effecting
psychologist on the state level where being more politically
active will be necessary to bring about change. Along these
lines - if you have a relationship with a federal or state
house or senate member or key staffer and would be willing
to serve as a “key contact” for us, please contact myself (ahsral@ak.net)
or Phil Baker (pwbaker@alaska.net). The health care field is
changing and the ways that psychology can play a part are
evolving. Being actively involved with those who make the
laws and formulate the regulation can only benefit us as a
profession; if we aren’t at the table, someone else will be.
One big change to my duties was strongly emphasized during
the advocacy work shop had to do with how I have been
contacting you through email. I have been advised that to
stay in compliance with FEC regulations, in the future FACs
should not be using their state listserves for any thing
that could be considered lobbying. From this point forward,
I’ll be passing along the action alerts I feel you need to
see via my personal email address. To be fully in compliance
the APAPO gave me an email list of all APA practice
assessment payers who live in Alaska and it is only email
addresses on that list that I can send action alerts to.
Political Giving - originally pitched as the third
leg of the political action stool (along with lobbying and
grassroots contacts), political giving was again a topic for
FAC workshops. One need look no further than last Fall to
see the effects large sums of money can have on a candidates
ability to campaign. But political giving should not be
conceived of as limited to the hundreds of thousands of
dollars given by teaparty constituencies and corporate
consortiums as in the last senate election. For example,
APAPO’s political action committee, the Association for the
Advancement of Psychology twice in the last election cycle
sent representatives to $1,000 a plate fund-raising
luncheons for Senator Lisa Murkowski. But it doesn’t
necessarily take huge sums of money. FACs are encouraged to
arrange fund-raising events to help keep elected officials
stay in place who support our issues or otherwise help fund
a candidate who will. Getting 10 or 20 psychologist together
to interact with a candidate and support with money doesn’t
buy votes, but it does open up lines of access that might
not otherwise be there. Members of the House are always
running for election and Senate races tend to be more
expensive, so even if they have longer terms, they are still
constantly racing money for the next election. Political
giving works to provide time and opportunities to establish
the ground for relationships with legislators that may bear
fruit later in the form of sponsoring or supporting
legislation we have had the opportunity to well educate the
member about.
The three-legged stool metaphor makes sense to me in terms
of describing an effective attempt to influence the course
of political action. And I have personally seen the amount
of instant recognition I have received from state candidates
for giving as little as one hundred dollars. But I have also
seen research that says that psychologist as a profession
are way at the bottom of the list of professions and their
related sums of political giving. If you are interested in
supporting psychology at the federal level, consider a
membership in the Association for the Advancement of
Psychology (www.aapnet.org/). You might be surprised at the
breadth of their interests. As I noted above, money has come
back to our delegation in the form of political giving.
Specific Lobbying -
Extend Medicare Cut Restoration for outpatient mental health
services - asking that legislation be passed to extend the
5% cut restoration beyond the end of this year and
preferably until after the new recommendations from the
Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) are ready to
be reviewed.
Adding Psychologists to the Medicare Definition of Physician
by legislation - this would allow psychologists to be
independent practitioners under the Medicare system. This
could also have some implications in the Medicaid system as
Medicaid often follows Medicare’s lead. There are bills in
each house to add psychologists to the definition this
session.
HITECH Act extended to Psychologists - the HITECH Act allows
for incentives to bring file and case management systems in
line with what is envisioned as a national health care data
base(s) that allow for disparate services to be collected
into one client record. Current legislation does not
prohibit this, but has been interpreted as not including
psychologists, so we were asking for Congress to provide
that direction. Note this would not be necessary if number 2
above could be passed and enacted.
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