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The
TAKE BACK MEDICINE NETWORK consists of TAFP members, your
families, your staff, their families and all members of the
health care team, speaking in one voice to return the focus of
the health care delivery system to the needs of the patients.
Through a communications network involving e-mail, phone, and
fax, we are collecting and disseminating information, and
facilitating quick responses on both local and state levels
whenever our right to deliver appropriate care or operate our
practices is challenged.
We
are chronicling issues and efforts that contribute to our
ultimate goal. We urge you to keep TAFP staff informed. Click on
the TBM Network link on the TAFP home page, www.tafp.org, to
post news and events affecting your practice and your patients
as well as specific problems you experience. The academy will
gather these comments and stories and get the message to
business and community leaders. We will also use this as a
message board for news briefs. By banding together and sharing
our stories and resources, we can make a change for the better
in the state’s health care delivery system.
AAFP
members speak out with success
An
effort to designate chiropractors as primary care practitioners
was thwarted at the end of 2001 in an example of how grass roots
activism can work. The AAFP spread word of the initiative,
pairing the message with information on the academy’s Speak
Out feature on its Web site, which allows physicians to easily
contact their legislators. More than 7,500 e-mails were sent
rebuking the initiative. Read this Dec. 14 note from AAFP
Director of Government Relations, Kevin Burke, thanking academy
members for a job well done:
Thank
you for your efforts to make sure that Congress did not
require that the Veterans Health Administration deem
chiropractors as primary care providers. Because of the 7,776
e-mails sent through the Academy's Speak Out feature, the
countless letters faxed to congressional offices and the many
phone calls from AAFP members, the academy was successful. A
new House/Senate compromise was crafted to allow the Secretary
of Veterans Affairs to designate one facility in each region
of the U.S. to provide chiropractic services. The Secretary
will also have the authority to appoint an advisory board to
advise him on the proper scope of chiropractic services. And
most importantly, chiropractors will not be designated primary
care providers. This compromise passed the House by voice vote
this week and is on the Senate calendar for next week. We
expect this issue to be resolved before the Senate recesses
for the year.
We
have an overwhelming and effective response to our request for
assistance. Please know how much we appreciate your
assistance. The academy's voice in Washington is more
effective every time you reach your member of Congress.
Kevin
J. Burke, Director
Division of Government Relations
American Academy of Family Physicians
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