The last few months have seen significant movement across a broad array of issues.
APA-Led Activities
Get out the Vote!
Psychiatrists have the power to help elect candidates who will promote mental health and substance use disorder policies that will protect your practice and your patients. Election day is right around the corner, and APA hopes to mobilize all psychiatrists to vote in this important election and give you the tools to help influence the outcomes. On November 5th, 88% of Congress, 27 gubernatorial seats and almost 6,000 state legislative seats are up for election, as well as an historic presidential race. The outcomes of this election will have a direct impact on psychiatry and mental health policy.
Visit APA’s 2024 Election Resource Center to:
- Register to vote
- Learn more about voting requirements in your state
- Get information about your federal and state candidates
- Track national races
- Find a list of mental health policy questions to ask candidates at town halls
- And tell APA about local candidates you support
Empowering Psychiatry’s Voice
Contributing to APAPAC is an important way APA members can invest in the outcomes of the upcoming election. Contributions from APA members to APAPAC ensure that psychiatry has the resources needed to support congressional mental health champions and build relationships with candidates and elected officials to grow new champions. The combined contributions of APA members allow APAPAC to make substantial investments in races.It is critical that APAPAC has enough funds to help impact races this year and ensure psychiatry’s mental health champions are reelected.
Invest in the November election and make your contribution to APAPAC today!
Executive Branch Activities
APA Joins Partners to Advocate for Finalization of Teleprescribing Rules
APA met with the Office of Budget and Management along with other interested agency staff to advocate on the upcoming proposed rule, “Telemedicine Prescribing of Controlled Substances When the Practitioner and the Patient Have not had a Prior In-Person Medical Evaluation” (since meeting, now titled “Special Registrations for Telemedicine and Limited State Telemedicine Registrations”). APA advocated for the inclusion of our telemental health priorities including inclusion of schedule II controlled substances in the upcoming proposed rule, removal of clinical decision-making from regulation, and the reduction of additional state-based registration requirements that limit access to lifesaving care.
APA Submits Comments on the Department of Justice Proposal to Reschedule Marijuana
APA submitted comments on July 16th to the DEA opposing the recommendation to transfer marijuana from a schedule I controlled substance to a schedule III controlled substance. The proposed rulemaking notes a few accepted uses of marijuana for the treatment of some physical health conditions, however, there is not enough scientific evidence for the treatment of psychiatric disorders and in contrast, a strong association with the onset of psychiatric disorders. Medical societies remain divided on the transfer of marijuana from schedule I to schedule III, however, APA and many of its partners support further research on the use of cannabis-derived substances as medicine.
APA Advocacy Efforts Pay Off
Proposals in the recently published rule on the 2025 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) highlight the impact and success of APA’s advocacy. CMS has proposed to support a number of APA’s recommendations including:
- Allowing clinicians to use the same billing codes for telehealth, including audio-only care, as they do when providing in person outpatient evaluation and management services in lieu of new billing codes from the AMA. This proposal maintains payment parity regardless of the modality used to provide care, mirrors how other mental health services provided by telehealth will be billed and is administratively simpler than the telehealth specific billing codes created by the AMA which pay less.
- Temporarily extending through the end of 2025: 1) the allowance for teaching physicians to virtually supervise residents but only when all participants are joining virtually from separate locations; and 2) the ability to use an office address when providing telehealth services from the clinicians home.
- Implementing new billing codes for suicide safety planning for use in any setting.
CMS is proposing to lower the conversion factor – the dollar amount CMS uses to determine Medicare payments – by approximately 2.80% from $33.2875 to $32.3562. APA along with the entire medical community continues to push for inflationary updates and changes to the Medicare formula that negatively impacts payments.
APA will be submitting substantive comments to CMS on these and other issues proposed in the rule. CMS welcomes comments from individuals as well. Please reach out to APA staff through [email protected] for more information. If you would like to be updated on future APA Advocacy efforts, sign up for APA’s Advocacy Updates.
Congressional Activities
APA Joins AMA Letter on Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) Reforms and the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS)
APA joined the medical community in a letter to Congressional leadership, urging them to prioritize legislation reforming the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS) and providing for greater financial stability for physicians. The letter proposed the following reforms to reflect the fiscal and clinical realities of medical practice today: Enacting an annual, permanent inflationary payment update in Medicare tied to the Medicare Economic Index (MEI); budget neutrality reform; an overhaul of MACRA’s Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS); and modifications to Alternative Payment Models (APM). View the full letter here.
APA Joins AMA on Physician Scope Issue
This month, APA joined the American Medical Association in a letter opposing H.R. 1770/S. 2477, the "Equitable Community Access to Pharmacist Services Act.” The Act allows pharmacists to perform services otherwise covered by a physician, test and treat patients for certain illnesses, and expand Medicare payment for pharmacists. View the full letter here.
APA Advocates for Behavioral Health Programs in Senate FY25 Appropriations
On August 1, the Senate Appropriations Committee reviewed and passed their fiscal year 2025 federal budget bill for the Labor, Health and Human Services and Related Agencies. The bill maintains steady investments in primary and behavioral care integration, specifically the Collaborative Care Model, and the Minority Fellowship Program that improves health equity. Multiple other workforce initiatives, maternal mental health programs and research institutes like NIMH received increases, as did the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA), which enforces mental health parity with many insurers. While the respective House version makes cuts to multiple health programs, many of APA’s priority issues noted above still received flat or increased funding, showing the significant bipartisan support for continuing to invest in behavioral health services.