APA Practice Organization: A Crucial Investment
Why not being an APA Practice Organization member is like not saving for retirement. . .
“Someone should do something about that. We need to be at the table when decisions are made. I need help figuring out how to handle all these healthcare reform changes. Why doesn’t someone stand up to managed care companies?”
These are questions and comments I hear all the time from psychologists. And I am concerned that the groups that I usually turn to when I have these types of issues—APA Practice Organization and my state psychological association—are not going to have the resources to best address the needs of professional psychologists.
Why? There has been a significant drop in APA Practice Organization dues paying members—approximately 35%. The Practice Organization relies heavily on member dues to provide services (unlike APA that has multiple sources of income including real estate and publishing). Every possible area has been scrutinized to reduce the budget approximately $1.5 million dollars. There are significant cuts proposed to Practice Organization budget (not final until approved by the APA BOD) that will directly affect psychologists. The biggest area of reduction proposed is in federal advocacy. This includes significant reductions in federal lobbying, federal advocacy, grass roots advocacy, and healthcare financing work.
State advocacy is also being affected—including elimination of legislative and emergency grants (organizational grants that help small state organizations keep the doors open are still continuing at this time). These legislative grants were used in states for scope of practice issues, sequence of training bills, RxP, and more. The following is a good summary of the Practice Organization financials, as well as some of the important work the Practice Organization has been doing that is now threatened by the lack of financial support: http://apapracticecentral.org/about/2016-annual-report.pdf
Are you as a psychologist ready to lose these services? Can you afford to do it? There is an expense to not being a member. APA cannot do this for you as a nonprofit (c-3) organization. You need the APA Practice Organization (c-6) to provide advocacy and advice on professional practice changes.
If you are doing advocacy at the state and federal level yourself, then good for you. But the reality is, most of us depend on others to do this for us. We all know the principle of “diffusion of responsibility”. If not the APA Practice Organization, then who?
It’s an investment, just like you put money into your retirement account. It makes sense to invest in your future. For early career psychologists, it makes sense to invest for advocacy for your career that you have already invested so much in. For later career psychologists, it makes sense to invest to see psychology continue as a profession. If you are a professional psychologist, it makes sense to invest in a group who will advocate for you at the state level, federal level, and in the healthcare industry. It makes sense to use the national and collective resources for psychologists to have a seat at the table and monitor national trends. It makes sense to be an APA Practice Organization member. It’s an investment in your future as a practicing psychologist. For membership renewal, check out this site: http://apapracticecentral.org/about/index.aspx
I am confident that I have made a good investment in the APA Practice Organization by paying my dues, and I am hopeful other practicing psychologists will see the value as well to help the APAPO continue its crucial work for psychology.
Transparency and membership engagement are goals for CAPP—the Practice Organization’s governing body. This blog is intended to be part of that communication to the membership to let you know what is going on in the APAPO; it is my own take on CAPP/APAPO and not an official communication. My goal is to help psychologists to be aware of current APAPO issues.
