ISMA and the Indiana Physician Coalition are asking for help reaching out to state lawmakers before next year’s legislative session. This proactive approach comes just in time, as some midlevel practitioners are ramping up efforts to expand their scope of practice in 2022.

You can get involved through a new grassroots advocacy campaign designed to connect more physicians and medical students with their state senators and representatives. By sharing your expertise over the coming months, you will help legislators become better informed when the Indiana General Assembly reconvenes in January.

The Educate to Legislate – Physician Action Kit prepares advocates with:

• Fact sheets on physician-led health care, scope of practice and health care licensure transparency (i.e., truth in advertising).
• A tool to identify your senator and representative and place a call to schedule your legislator meetings.
• Tips on how to prepare for, conduct and follow up on these meetings.
• A form that gathers feedback from your meeting to share with the coalition.
• Links to political action committees through which you can donate to lawmakers who share the coalition's positions on scope of practice and physician-led care.
  
  

Midlevel practitioners organize opposition, seek independent practice
The Coalition of Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (CAPNI) has once again put out a call for nurse practitioners to lobby their legislators about removing the required practice agreement with physicians, which they claim is “costly and time-consuming.”

In addition, CAPNI helped launch a new group calling itself the Indiana Coalition for Patient-Centered Care (ICPCC). This represents a coordinated effort by nurse practitioners, optometrists, pharmacists, physician assistants and registered nurses to stand in opposition to physician-led care.

In a letter posted on ICPCC’s website, they call out ISMA and the Indiana Physician Coalition, expressing their concern that the message of physician-led care creates mistrust about the quality of care provided by nonphysicians.

That’s simply not the case, according to ISMA President Roberto Darroca, MD.

“From the very outset, we have made it clear that every member of the health care team plays an important role in the delivery of patient care. And that team-based model should continue with physicians at the helm, given our unmatched training, education and experience,” Dr. Darroca said.

Check out the Physician Action Kit to get involved, and recommend that your colleagues do the same to protect patients through physician-led care. Plus: Be sure to follow the Indiana Physician Coalition on Twitter and Facebook and help educate others about why Hoosier patients trust physicians to coordinate their health care.