Take Action
Today’s changing practice environment requires you to be an effective advocate for your patients and your profession. You are key to ensuring that policymakers understand the benefits of hospice and palliative care and how you and your patients are impacted by the latest health policy proposals. With information and tools from AAHPM, it’s easy to get started.
AAHPM Legislative Action Center
Congressional Management Foundation surveys show constituent interactions strongly influence lawmakers’ decisions, and advocates are more effective when they provide personal stories and information about the impact a bill/issue would have on their district or state.
AAHPM’s Legislative Action Center makes it simple to review legislation relevant to you, share your perspectives with your representatives in Congress, and begin building relationships that are key to ensuring sound health policy.
- Review legislation – See the bills that AAHPM supports.
- Contact your representatives – Easily find and contact your elected officials about issues important to you.
Support the Palliative Care and Hospice Education and Training Act
The Palliative Care and Hospice Education and Training Act (PCHETA) – a bill developed by AAHPM – has been reintroduced in the U.S. House of Representatives as H.R. 647 with strong bipartisan support. (Review a bill summary.)
AAHPM and its stakeholder partners are focused on securing support from members of the Energy and Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over the bill, to quickly advance PCHETA in the House. It will also be important to engage Republican members in the House who previously supported the bill and ask them to cosponsor again.
If you are from a congressional district one of these lawmakers represents, please reach out today using AAHPM’s Legislative Action Center, and urge your member of Congress to cosponsor PCHETA.
The action alerts below include suggested talking points, making it easy to send a personalized e-mail. (The system will only generate a message if your contact information indicates that you're a constituent of a member of Congress in the targeted group.)
- Contact House Republicans that supported PCHETA last Congress – Thank them for their support, and ask them to cosponsor the bill in the 116th Congress.
- Tweet your Representative and help build momentum for PCHETA! - Ask your elected representative to cosponsor the bill, or thank them if they already have.This alert makes it simple by providing the Twitter handle for your member of Congress and customizing a sample tweet based on the status of your lawmaker's support. *Verify your account is unloacked and publicly viewable before tweeting.
Comment Opportunities
CMS Releases Annual Hospice Payment, Quality Reporting Proposed Rule; Comment by June 18
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released a proposed rule that would update the hospice payment rates, wage index, and cap amount for fiscal year (FY) 2020. Under the rule, the proposed hospice payment update is 2.7 percent, while CMS proposes to rebase the continuous home care, general inpatient care, and the inpatient respite care per diem payment rates in a budget-neutral manner to more accurately align Medicare payments with the costs of providing care. In addition, this rule proposes to modify the election statement by requiring an addendum that includes information aimed at increasing coverage transparency for patients under a hospice election. Finally, this rule proposes changes to the Hospice Quality Reporting Program. Access a CMS Fact Sheet.
Comments are due June 18, 2019, and can be submitted online via regulations.gov (search CMS-1714-P).
Constituent Meetings
As a hospice and palliative care professional, you are not only a constituent but an expert resource on health policy issues. Are you interested in setting up a meeting with your members of Congress and their staff to discuss the needs of patients and families facing serious illness? Are you looking to invite your representative to tour your facility and see how the decisions they make impact the services you provide?
Contact AAHPM’s This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for assistance.