How to Enlist Patients to Help Your Government Affairs Efforts

• By David Kopf
• Jul 01, 2011

Providers are fighting multiple political battles these days, and while their livelihoods are on the line, there is a group of people that has even more at stake than HMEs: patients. In many cases patient’s lives might be on the line. The sad fact of Medicare policies, such as competitive bidding, the 36-month oxygen rental cap and the removal of the first month purchase option, is that thepatients are the ultimate point of pain.

Which is why providers need to enlist patients into their political efforts. This makes a good deal of sense for a couple key reasons. First off, patients make the most convincing arguments. It is one thing for a business owner to complain about the negative effects of ill-conceived and poorly run programs such as competitive bidding, but it is quite another for a patient to describe how these program block their access to much-needed care, negatively impact their quality of life, and force them to seek hospital treatment, or worse. It’s hard for a politician to discount what patients say as having some other agenda behind it.

Involving patients in lobbying makes sense for another reason: You need the help. Chances are your HME business is not a large conglomerate with plenty of additional staff and capital resources that it can throw at lobbying efforts. This is why so many providers have to do their own lobbying, which distracts them from their core responsibilities. But your patients represent a pool of grassroots ready-and-willing agents who can work on your behalf.

Make no mistake, many patients want to help your efforts, and simply need some direction. They recognize that your business is part of the healthcare continuum that keeps them living their lives to the fullest. If you can keep them regularly involved and give them the tools and information to pitch in, they will turn into your best allies. Here aresome ways to do that:

Put someone in charge. The first thing you need to do is create a staff liaison who can interface with patients and organize them. Whoever this person is (it might be yourself) should be regularly identifying patients that can help in lobbying efforts and reach out to them to collect their contact information so that they can start sending those patients information and important updates and calls to action.

Social networking. A great way to send that information is through social networking. Sites such as Facebook and Twitter provide an amazingly effective and efficient way to organize your constituents and make them an active part of your grassroots organizing. Not only can you use it to get your message points and calls to action to patients, but they can pass it along to their friends. Your patients could recruit supporters you never even dreamed of involving. Consider it the multi-level marketing of political action. If you have any doubts of how effective a tool it can be, consider some of the political groups you might already follow on Facebook or Twitter. Entities on all sides of the political spectrum have made considerable gains with these electronic tools. That said, don’t stop at social networking. Make it one of many arrows in your communications quiver.

Identify some champions. While you might be able to get a number of people to agree to receive information and generally support your efforts in terms of spreading the word and making phone calls and emails, you will need some patient advocates who will get out there and be the “faces” of your lobbying efforts. You want to find patients that have ample available time to support your efforts, are willing to have face-to-face meetings with lawmakers and staff, and can delivery a smooth, convincing presentation.

Keep your updates regular. If you want to ensure that you have your advocates continue working for you, then maintain a regular stream of information going to them. This not only keeps them in tune with what is going on with the public policies that affect them, but it also keeps them active and involved. If you don’t provide them with information on a somewhat regular basis, they won’t have much of a sense of urgency.

Organize campaigns. You don’t have to wait for associations to get the ball rolling. Organize call-in and email campaigns to support efforts such as getting lawmakers to co-sponsor H.R. 1041 (the bill to repeal competitive bidding). Use the assets you’ve put in place to mobilize your patients.

Facilitate meetings. Once you have identified your champions, make sure that you set up the meetings between your patients and your Representative or his or her legislative (and of course be a part of those meetings yourself). But you want to be the lynchpin in this meeting so that you can coach the patient and help him or her craft a solid and convincing presentation. Plus by being there with the patient and helping him or her, you will also ease any nervousness your patient might have, which will of course benefit the presentation.

But there’s another central reason why you want to facilitate the process. For some patients, such as mobility patients, meeting with a lawmaker can be physically challenging. Getting dressed and ready, ensuring attendant care and traveling to the meeting can be an involved process. This can be a good opportunity for your staff liaison to step in and help to arrange the meeting and ensure all access requirements will be met will go a long way toward ensuing a positive outcome.

This article originally appeared in the July 2011 issue of HME Business.