It takes more than a day
From the President
Dr. Kaufmann served as Academy president from March 2022 to March 2023.
By Mark Kaufmann, MD, FAAD, February 1, 2023
It’s the start of a new year and naturally, I find myself reflecting on the ups and downs of the last 12 months. There were many highs, including the rejuvenating in-person Annual Meeting and Innovation Academy, as well as my wonderfully irreplicable visit to a Minnesota Camp Discovery site. There were also some significant trials this year — battling unsafe scope of practice expansions, getting back to the “new normal” from COVID, and of course, the ongoing fight for fair Medicare reimbursement.
The 2022 AADA Legislative Conference, held in September in Washington, D.C., was one of this year’s premier events in my mind, not only because I enjoyed seeing my colleagues in person once more, but because I had the opportunity to advocate on behalf of our patients and our specialty.
This year’s conference was the first year back to an in-person event since 2019, and it did not disappoint. We had 37 states and the District of Columbia represented at the conference with 186 attendees including physicians, patients, patient advocates, and dermatology practice administrators. Together, we discussed the challenging issues facing our patients, what we can do about them, and best practices for advocating on behalf of our patients to members of Congress.
On the final day of the conference, we traveled to Capitol Hill, meeting with 151 House of Representatives offices and 76 Senate offices. Of the 227 congressional meetings, 42 were member-level meetings that included either the senator or representative. We told our members of Congress real stories about how the prior authorization process and medication step therapy protocols are negatively affecting our patients. But most importantly, we advocated against the 8.5% Medicare payment cuts and asked for an inflation adjustment to help keep our offices open in an era of rising inflation.
I firmly believe that our collective grassroots advocacy efforts make a dent in the minds of those who make health care policy. Indeed, at the conference, U.S. Rep. John Joyce, MD, FAAD, said to us, “Your stories are listened to. Your stories impact legislation.”
However, it takes more than one day on Capitol Hill to sway health care policy. It wasn’t until December 2022 that Congress agreed to a partial reprieve to the expected 8.5% cuts in Medicare payments. The 8.5% cut was reduced to a 2% cut in 2023 and a 3.25% cut in 2024. This is clearly not acceptable in the face of rising wage and medical inflation. The AADA will continue to stress that any cut is unacceptable, and that we need a positive adjustment for inflation.
However, it takes the persistent efforts of the masses to effect change and the AADA cannot do it alone.
Get involved
Learn more about how you can get involved in advocacy at https://takeaction.aad.org.
We have started — and will continue — to enlist our patients to help us in this effort. We need all our members mobilized and advocating to their members of Congress, and it doesn’t even require a trip to Washington, D.C. In fact, this year, AADA members who didn’t attend the conference were invited to participate in a “Virtual Fly-In” by sending letters to their members of Congress about our legislative asks. More than 200 letters were sent by AADA members.
The virtual fly-in is just one example of how each and every one of us can easily get involved in grassroots advocacy. Visit the Academy’s Advocacy Action Center to learn how you can make a difference at https://takeaction.aad.org. It’s up to us to put our full weight behind advocating for the issues that protect our patients and our specialty. Please join us.
