Advocacy and Leadership: Updates from Practice Leadership Conference 2019*

Wow! I am just back from Practice Leadership Conference in Washington DC and still running on adrenaline. What a great experience from start to finish!

Highlights of PLC are the excellent programs, opportunities for states to learn from each other, and the lobbying efforts on Tuesday. I was privileged to lead a panel with Division 31 on “A State Toolkit for Integrated Care” with Roseann Fish Getchell, Doug Tynan, Traci Bolander, and Paul Korte. It was a packed room full of great energy! State leaders were eager to share resources about legislation, training models, and reimbursement strategies for integrated care.

Another highlight was facilitating group discussions for Presidents Elect from the state associations during their orientation. PLC has long provided leadership training for state psychological associations including their incoming presidents, executive directors, and directors of professional affairs. We talked about issues such as advocacy needs in the states—for example, Texas is facing an omnibus board take over. This would mean that instead of a psychology board protecting the public and efficiently licensing psychologists, you may have one psychologist on a board of multiple non-doctoral professionals such as social work, counseling, and addictions counselors. These orientations provide a space for states to learn from each other and APA, but also for the states to communicate back to APA the crucial issues they are facing.

But the capstone of PLC is always the Hill visits. This year we discussed three substantial issues: 1) the Medicare Mental Health Access Act (H.R. 884) which adds psychologists to the physician definition, 2) the Mental Health Telemedicine Expansion Act (H.R. 1301) which would broaden ability to use telehealth for mental health services in Medicare and 3) general protections for mental health and addiction treatment under Medicare including maintaining Medicaid expansion and essential health benefits. This practice advocacy is crucial to maintaining psychologists’ role in the healthcare system. Even if you don’t take Medicare, private insurance issues are affected by Medicare, and reimbursement rates and general salaries trickle down from there. Both bills discussed had bipartisan support. It was my pleasure to visit my representative’s office (Rep Dave Joyce (R-Ohio)) as well as Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) to discuss these issues.

I believe the issues we advocated for were a good example of how practice issues can also be social justice issues. For example, Medicaid expansion has enabled thousands of low income Ohioans to get insured and access mental health resources that otherwise would not. The unified and focused agenda at these visits is a strength of our association. It will be interesting to see how PLC evolves as APA moves into its new integrated advocacy model.

I cannot say enough about what a terrific job APA staff does in organizing and executing this conference. Dan Abrahamson and Susie Lazaroff in the State Advocacy Office are superstars. Doug Walter and his team from Government Relations get us comfortable talking to our legislators and fully briefed on the issues we will be sharing. The Legal and Regulatory staff led by Shirley Higuchi provide excellent resources on issues such as Medicaid, telepsychology, HIPAA, and more. I was even able to fit in morning yoga, courtesy of one of the conference sponsors, and donate unused toiletries and food to charity thanks to the thoughtful work of Tammy Barnes in Practice Staff.

It was a bit of a bittersweet PLC for those of us on CAPP which will sunset in June related to the new integrated advocacy model. CAPP has been the governance body highly connected to PLC. As CAPP draws to an end, there is work being done to transition its non-advocacy functions such as PLC, state grants, and other c-6 practice activities to other governance groups. More to come on this April. CAPP is working hard to make sure the practice voice and services will continue as transformation evolves. I’d like to thank the hard working members of CAPP who attended PLC and continue to serve: Lindsey Buckman (CAPP Chair), Peter Oppenheimer, Traci Cipriano, Jo Linder Crowe, Paul Kettlewell, Tyler Bradstreet, and Giselle Haas.

This was the first PLC in the new integrated advocacy model. Members of the new Advocacy Coordinating Committee (ACC), which will set advocacy priorities for the organization with input from stakeholders, were present in addition to leaders from the Public Interest, Education, and Science Community, and the new Chief Advocacy Officer, Katherine McGuire. I hope they felt welcome and were able to feel the energy and see the effectiveness of PLC in engaging state leaders from across the country.

There were efforts to integrate education, science, and public interest issues into the conference. A great example was the plenary with APA President Elect Dr. Sandy Shullman discussing leadership needs for psychology and psychologists as we advocate. In addition, delegates were given the opportunity to share information about the Argosy crisis or consider other public interest issues during their lobbying on Tuesday.

When psychologists ask me what does their APA membership do for them, Practice Leadership Conference is one of the shining examples that I can share with them. Where I can share that APA is bringing hundreds of psychologists from across the country to fight for psychology and psychologists. I hope it continues to be a strong voice for psychologists in the years to come.

Resources:

APA Practice Leadership Conference 2019: https://www.apaservices.org/practice/advocacy/state/leadership/plc-invite

APA Services Inc. Advocacy: https://www.apa.org/advocacy/index

*This blog represents my own opinions and views on APA/APASI news and is not an official APA/APASI statement.