Insight Matters
Winter 2005

126th General Assembly Convenes
By Kenneth Miller, M.D., Chair, Government Relations Committee

Ship's log:
Our ship, our vessel, the OPA, remains strong and revitalized by active and passionate members. Rotating the watch, sharing the helm duties have keep us on task and on our mission. OPA Council has approved state of the art information services that will enhance our effectiveness at the state and federal levels.

New legislation/new legislators
Remaining underway the ongoing challenges of Medicaid reform, Medicare coverage and reimbursement, universal health care access, jail diversion programs, childhood relinquishment laws, psychologist prescription privileges, suicide prevention, restricted formularies, managed care legislation, other scope of practice challenges, malpractice insurance crisis, physician patient privacy, lack of services for the special populations of child and adolescents and elderly, and finally, mental health parity, persist.

Many of these issues will be reintroduced by the state and federal legislature as new bills to follow. There will be new legislators to meet and new relationships to build.

We are strategically teaming up with the able bodies in our OPPAC and Scope of Practice, Public Information & Liaison, and other OPA committees to develop targeted goals.

Federal advocacy
Dr. David Bienenfeld, has graciously agreed to attend the Advocacy Day in Washington DC as the federal rep-resentative delegate for the OPA. He brings much wisdom and energy to the task of meeting with key congressman and their staffers and continuing to build our presence in Washington.

We look forward to ongoing fiscal, organizational, administrative, and moral support from the APA. I can't say enough about the gains we've made over the last year at local, state and federal government relations by the hard working efforts of our members, and especially the efforts of our executive director, Janet Shaw.

After the 2004 training of members in advocacy, and priming them on the political and legislative process, our ongoing 2005 plan is to:

o Build local political activist members/teams in the various regions to advocate for our patients and profession with key political figures and committee members and to build relations.
o Provide and implement "5-minute Fact Sheets" to address our advocacy issues.
o Acknowledge the "Legislator of the Year" at our professional events.
o Continue to serve as a resource to monitor, review and advocate on behalf of legislation that affects the practice of psychiatry, medicine, and our patient relationships.

We will keep our membership informed through ongoing electronic alerts using OPA e-Insight, regular updates to the OPA Web site, use of the APA CAPwiz and Advocacy action alerts, and ongoing articles in Insight Matters.

How you can help
Please contact the OPA office if you have the passion and inclination to participate in the committees mentioned. At the very least, we hope that you will take action today to contribute to OPPAC and the APA PAC to provide the vital support needed to strengthen our advocacy efforts.

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