March Advocacy Recap

Alec Bose:

Hello and welcome to the CAP Advocacy Recap, a monthly podcast dedicated to catching you up on the top news for pathologists. I'm Alec Bose from the CAP's Advocacy Communications Team here with your March recap.

This month we'll be looking at recent efforts to strengthen the national blood Supply, the passing of an omnibus bill by Congress and the latest updates about the Prevent Pandemics Act. Later we will sit down with the chair of the CAP's Federal and State Affairs Committee, Dr. David Gang, to talk about the CAP's legislative asks for this year's Hill Day and what participants can do to prepare.

We start today with the shortage in the US blood supply. The CAP has joined the Alliance for a Strong Blood Supply, a coalition of medical groups dedicated to ensuring enough blood is available for patients during and after the pandemic. On March 3rd, a clinician roundtable for the Alliance met to discuss the overuse of Type O blood to increase the national blood supply during the ongoing shortage. The Type O blood is in high demand as it can be transferred to recipients of any blood type. However, overuse of the Type O blood can result in shortages for those who need it most.

Dr. Glenn E. Ramsey, Chair of the CAP Transfusion, Apheresis and Cellular Therapy Committee represented the CAP at this meeting, where the group discussed ways to ensure appropriate use of Type O blood. These ways included closely monitoring transfusions at hospitals and expediting sample collection. For more details and updates, be sure to read our weekly newsletter, which all CAP members receive as part of their CAP membership.

In Congressional news, the Senate passed an omnibus spending bill by a vote of 68 to 31 to fund the government through the end of September. President Joe Biden signed the bill into law shortly after. The bill appropriated funding to several health agencies for different initiatives, including $353 million to the National Cancer Institute, with about half going to the Cancer Moonshot Initiative, $100 million to the CDC to modernize public health data surveillance and analytics, and an additional $50 million to the HHS for health disparities research.

The bill also allocates $10.6 billion for the Public Health and Social Services Emergency Fund, ensuring that the HHS can address the current pandemic, and further prepare for future variance. For more information on what's in the spending bill, visit cap.com/advocacy.

In related news, the Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee, known as the HELP Committee, approved the Prepare for and Respond to Existing Viruses, Emerging New Threats, and Pandemics Act, or PREVENT Pandemics Act, by a bipartisan vote of 20 to two. This would strengthen the nation's public health and medical preparedness and response systems. The CAP has engaged with Congress, and supports a number of key elements in the legislation, including funding authorization to address the social determinants of health, supporting epidemic forecasting and outbreak analytics by the CDC, modernizing and strengthening the supply chain for medical devices, as well as a number of other key provisions. The CAP will continue to engage with Congress on the issue, and we'll send out updates as the bill moves forward.

We conclude the recap with the focus on Hill Day advocacy. The Pathologist Leadership Summit will take place April 30th through May 3rd. On the last day of the summit, many will meet with their congressional representatives and request support for the CAP's legislative priorities.

To learn more about these priorities, we sat down with Dr. David Gang, chair of the CAP's Federal and State Affairs Committee. Dr. Gang also offered some advice on what participants can do to prepare. Well, Dr. Gang, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate you joining us.

Dr. David Gang:

You're very welcome.

Alec Bose:

What are pathologists asking for when it comes to the looming pay cuts?

Dr. David Gang:

Well, the most immediate thing we're asking for is to extend the 3% relief provided by the Protecting Medicare and American farmers from Sequester Cuts Act. And this is about to come down on us again, it's been pushed back for two years, but we need to continue it until we can get some kind of final solution to this cut. Because we're also facing a additional 3% cut, which is a G code, which was put off for three years in 2020.

So these are very serious challenges to us, at a time when our laboratories have suffered from attrition of employees and from increasing prices inflation, and this will really impact and make our ability to practice even more difficult in the future. So I think the immediate 3% cut that I mentioned with the act that's in Congress now is our really most important step.

Alec Bose:

How does CAP feel Congress should approach pathologist workforce shortages?

Dr. David Gang:

Well, we are supporting a Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2021, and this would create 14,000 new positions over seven years. And we sure hope some of them will be pathologists, because we're going to have a real drop off in practicing pathologists in the future. And we are very important to the future of medicine.

And the nice thing about this Act is it will provide positions in hospitals in underserved areas and rural areas, as well as other places that have new medical schools with new training positions, or expansions of old medical schools. But basically, this is going to increase the physician workforce, and we certainly want physicians increased for pathologists, because we are going to have a severe shortage in the coming years.

I think what's most dramatic is something like 20% of physicians are going to be retired in the next five years, and there's a physician shortage of up to 124,000 predicted for 2034, and we sure need to do something about that.

Alec Bose:

Wow. Yeah. What does the CAP feel Congress should do about pandemic preparedness?

Dr. David Gang:

We certainly ought to be prepared, because we sure weren't for the last few years. So there is a PREVENT Pandemics Act that's been just passed out of the Senate Health Labor and Pension Committee, actually this month. And this is going to do a lot for the future. There'll be US genetic surveillance and viral sequencing that's being promoted, testing capacity, which has been a real problem for all of our pathology labs. It's going to be supported with this bill. The bill also establishes state and federal stockpiles of supplies for a future epidemic, and we certainly are supporting all of those issues.

There also in this bill is an effort to address barriers for underrepresented diverse populations in clinical trials. And also this bill will support the manufacture of critical medical devices. But PREVENT Pandemics has a lot for testing and a lot for laboratories. And we've written to stakeholders, I mean to various ... the senators and the people who are supporting the bill, to please include these important issues that affect laboratories. Because we are the basis of diagnosis of disease, and things can't go forward without our help.

Alec Bose:

Thank you. And then finally, what can pathologists do to prepare as Hill Day approaches?

Dr. David Gang:

Well first of all, don't be scared. It's a lot of fun going into, and even Zooming with congressional offices. They're very friendly, very open. We are dealing with very complex issues, and the folks in the offices that we meet with are very anxious to hear what we have to say. Many of them have some background in health issues, and really want to understand what our issues are.

I think one shouldn't be afraid, scared that there's going to be a congressmen or senators sitting there, because 99% of the time it will be office staff, and they will be young people, and often younger than us attendees. But just go with an open mind. Go with the idea that you're really helping someone understand complex issues, and that the people you're meeting with really want to want to help you, and help us, and help patients.

Often there are large groups that are going to lobby their congressional representatives, or let's say, educate their congressional representatives. And you have to kind of get an idea of who's going to do the talking. You get somebody to present the issue, some others to follow up on what's been left out. People have to be friendly and open and willing to introduce themselves. But being organized, I think, about delivering the message, being able to deliver the message very succinctly, the elevator speech idea, so that you get it across without getting too complicated. Then you can be prepared, I think, to answer questions about specific technical aspects of the ask. That's an important approach to going in the office and save time, and make your message much more effective.

Alec Bose:

Well, I think that's a perfect place to leave it on. Thank you so much for joining us, Dr. Gang. We appreciate your time. That's all for this edition of the CAP Advocacy Recap. Thank you so much for listening. Be sure to read our weekly advocacy newsletter, and follow us on Twitter @CAPDCAdvocacy. Once again for CAP Advocacy, I'm Alec Bose, and we will see you next month.

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