OAFP Nominates Its Advocacy Partnerships with Untraditional Partners for 2019 AAFP Leadership in State Governmental Advocacy Award

On August 2, the Ohio Academy of Family Physicians submitted for consideration our advocacy successes during the past year made possible through collaborative partnerships with unlikely or untraditional partners. The OAFP typically partners, as would be expected, with like-minded organizations that focus on access to and delivery of primary care. In the past several months, we have sought to broaden our horizons in finding new advocacy partners that support our legislative and regulatory objectives. Below are described three recent success stories where the OAFP utilized “outside the box” partnerships to assist us in advancing policy that supports family medicine and primary care.

1. Step Therapy Reform – On January 4, Governor John Kasich signed into law Substitute Senate Bill 265, legislation that institutes much needed step therapy reform. OAFP members offered proponent testimony in both the House and Senate multiple times over the four-year period that step therapy reform was under consideration. The OAFP worked with a coalition called Ohioans for Step Therapy Reform which afforded us the opportunity to partner with many national and state patient and disease-specific associations ranging in focus from dermatology, rheumatology, and multiple sclerosis to psoriasis, sickle cell, and blood disorders. The OAFP’s involvement with these non-traditional partners strengthened our message, amplified our reach, and ultimately resulted in passage of legislation that reduces administrative burden and provides better quality patient care.

2. One-Bite Administrative Rules – Legislation passed in late 2017 to formalize a one-bite program which would allow physicians and other health care providers licensed by the State Medical Board of Ohio (SMBO), who met certain criteria, to be exempt from reporting their drug or alcohol impairment to the SMBO. The legislation sought to formalize a process under which licensees could seek confidential treatment to improve their health and wellbeing and, in turn, protect the public.

Unfortunately, the administrative rule making process, once in the hands of the SMBO, undid the good that was accomplished by the legislation. The OAFP, and other medical organizations, joined forces with the Ohio Physicians Health Program, alcohol and substance abuse treatment providers, disability rights advocacy organizations, state lawmakers who sponsored the original legislation, and attorneys who regularly represent physicians before the SMBO, to advocate for 18 revisions to their proposed rules. Eventually, the SMBO adopted 17 of the requested changes verbatim while addressing the final issue with compromise language.

3. Choose Ohio First Primary Care Scholarship Fix – The OAFP made a hard push for inclusion of language in the state budget bill (House Bill 166) that would fix a problem that made Ohio’s medical schools hesitant to promote Choose Ohio First Primary Care scholarships to medical students. The OAFP reached out to the Ohio Council of Medical School Deans, medical school financial aid officers, lobbyists for universities across the state, state legislators who supported the fix, the Ohio Association of Community Health Centers, and the Ohio Patient-Centered Primary Care Workforce Learning Center, generating sufficient attention to get the desired provision included.

The OAFP is proud of the coalitions we have built of non-traditional partners. These new relationships have helped us achieve success in shared advocacy objectives. In the OAFP’s letter of nomination, we urged other chapters to think broadly about partnerships (unusual bedfellows) that could provide shared resources and amplify efforts that result in advocacy success stories.

Winners of the 2019 AAFP Leadership in State Governmental Advocacy Award will be announced during the AAFP Congress of Delegates in September.