Advocacy: Time to get started

Q. What’s next for health care advocacy? 

A. As discussed throughout this series, health care providers – experts and those with direct access to patients – have the responsibility to push and endorse policies that promote equitable care and remove the current barriers that are still found throughout our health care system.  

However, our organization recognizes that true change and legislative success for health care access does not occur in a vacuum. We are actively seeking out coalition members from a variety of sources, including veteran organizations, disability and elderly advocacy groups, trade associations and even competitors to work together to create a better environment for all Americans, not just our patients, and we strongly encourage all health care organizations to do the same.  

Where can you get started? Creating strong relationships with decision-makers at the local, state and federal levels by directly engaging with them and their staff is crucial to moving forward with actual change, as there is a lot of work being done across the country in almost every state to focus on sales tax initiatives.  

Our organization is currently seeking to eliminate taxes for essential products, such as diapers and breast pumps, which ensures patients receive quality products to help meet their specific needs in those states. We encourage other health care providers to begin pursuing similar ventures with their state governments that relate to their specific patients. Other options include working with these stakeholders to broaden more choices for Medicaid patients and other vulnerable populations to keep Americans in their homes longer, rather than moving into long-term care facilities as this is largely out of reach for many with fixed incomes.  

As stated before, advocacy translates to better access, with every little bit leading to better health outcomes by decreasing preventable complications for all Americans. 

Ryan Bullock is COO at Aeroflow Healthcare. Reach him at ryan.bullock@aeroflowinc.com.