Oncologists ‘need to be active’ in advocacy
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
CHICAGO — When Brian E. Persing, MD, attended a state legislative white coat day that ultimately led to prior authorization legislation being passed in Mississippi, one of his colleagues asked him a blunt question.
“How do you have time for this?” the colleague inquired.
Persing immediately knew how to respond.
“When we think about advocacy, we’re trying to improve patient care, but we’re also trying to improve our ability to see patients in the clinic without having to take the time to do a peer-to peer or prior authorization for something that should obviously be covered,” said Persing, a hematologist/oncologist at University of South Alabama’s Mitchell Cancer Institute. “We spend 15 minutes — minimum — doing a peer-to-peer because it takes 12 minutes to get them on the phone. How can we afford not to take the time to advocate?”
Persing spoke about the importance of advocacy during an ASCO Annual Meeting education session. Topics ranged from how to get involved at the state level to why physician advocates should feel confident as “subject matter experts” when approaching legislators.
“We’ve been silent. We’ve been taking it on the chin,” Persing said. “We need to be active because our patients deserve this.”
State-level advocacy
A clinician doesn’t need to go to Washington, D.C., to participate in health care advocacy, Persing said.
“Outside of Medicare, a lot of the insurance issues are handled on a state level,” he said. “At the state level, it’s a lot easier to get things through.”
Persing got his start when he served as a representative to ASCO’s State Affiliates Council.
State affiliates serve as ASCO’s partners in advocacy. ASCO supports state affiliates by providing policy statements, analyzing legislation and regulations, drafting joint ASCO and state society comment letters, preparing testimony for state hearings and meetings, and coordinating grassroots alerts through the state ACT Network.
The information and materials provided by ASCO have been invariably useful, Persing said.
“There’s never been a time I’ve walked into something that ASCO set up where I didn’t feel prepared to have a discussion with the people on the other side of the table,” he said.
Persing acknowledged that advocacy can be intimidating at first, especially when speaking before lawmakers. However, he emphasized clinicians should feel emboldened by the expertise and knowledge they bring to the discussion.
“Advocates who aren’t health care professionals are also vitally important, because [they] have a story to tell,” he said. “We can throw statistics at legislators all day long, but when you start telling a story, it hits home. When you’re telling a story and you live in their district and you’re one of their constituents, they think ‘Oh man, I’d better find out what’s going on.’”
Supporting ‘like-minded values’
In 2020, the Association for Clinical Oncology established the ASCO Association PAC.
The political action committee is designed to help advocates engage and educate lawmakers on the realities of the cancer care delivery system.
In the current election cycle, the PAC has supported 42 legislators deemed “health care champions” in their reelections.
“The PAC has been very bipartisan in its support. One of the challenges we’re running into this year is that we’re losing several key health care legislators,” he said. “Those are people who have been champions for us in getting legislation passed.”
Three physicians are running for Congress this year, and an ASCO member is running in Kansas, Persing said.
“We’ve been able to put support behind people with like-minded values for our patients,” he said.
The ASCO ACT Network offers another way to speak up on key issues without necessarily making substantial time or travel commitments. The ACT Network sends action alerts stating ASCO’s position on key bills, provides messages advocates can personalize and send to their legislators, and provides federal and state bill trackers to help monitor legislation with which ASCO is involved
“The ACT Network is designed to send out information in real time about things that are changing,” he said. “You can also sign on to letters or send letters to legislators — especially when you feel strongly about the items we’re discussing.”
‘Don’t be afraid’
Persing also discussed opportunities to reach out to lawmakers closer to home. This could mean meeting with legislators while they are in their home state or district.
“You can swing into their office while they’re home, and it’s calmer,” he said. “So many times in D.C., they’re running all over the place. At home, everything’s more relaxed. You have more time to sit down and chat with them.”
Visits from lawmakers to a clinician’s practice can be helpful as far as showing legislators how oncology practices work, what they need to run smoothly, and how legislative measures can help.
“Often several colleagues can meet with lawmakers at the same time, and that allows them to see the cohesive, multidisciplinary approach we like to take to cancer care,” he said. “Visits to our practices also give us a chance to show the costs of medicine, and why we shouldn’t have to hire extra staff just to manage insurance-related issues.”
ASCO has debuted a Health Policy Community of Practice — which Persing called “another great entry point” for advocacy — as well as a health policy committee.
Persing encouraged oncologists to take up advocacy in whatever form or to whatever extent they can manage.
“Don’t be afraid to get involved, even if it’s something as simple as sending a letter,” he said. “The more momentum we get with this, the more mass we have with what we bring to legislators, the more likely it is that they’re going to listen to us.”
Collapse
Persing BE. Advocacy in action: When, where and how to advance advocacy efforts. Presented at: ASCO Annual Meeting; May 31-June 4, 2024; Chicago.
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts