DD 012 Advocacy
[012 - Advocacy.mp3]
CVS plans to close 23 pharmacies in Arkansas, and this represents all of their pharmacies.
And the reason why they're doing it is because a recent act that was passed as a law, Act 624, prevents pharmacy benefit managers from owning pharmacies.
And this prevents CVS from creating somewhat of a vertical monopoly and being able to control the drug pricing.
And so what they've done is in the past, these pharmacy benefit managers decide how much pharmacies get paid for these medications.
So if you're an independent pharmacy , they will pay you less than their own CVS pharmacies.
And why is that?
Because they want to run you out of business so they can have more control within their own pharmacies, right?
And many pharmacists started noticing this.
So they were like, hey, what the heck is going on here?
And so they started lobbying in Congress, their local governor, things like this.
And so finally, this law got passed .
And I think this is extremely important topic to talk about, which is advocacy.
And so I know there are many myths around advocacy, and until you get into it, those myths can be pretty prominent.
One of them is like talking to senators and governors doesn't work, right?
But when you go and do this, because I used to do this for a very large company, as a physician.
And when you go and do this, you find out that it's not that the governors or the, like like the lawmakers want like a handout.
Most of them have a story behind what they're doing.
So most of them have a story that says like, you know, they experience some type of hardship, so they want to change something for the better, right?
Now, there is an exception to where they will get handouts maybe after they leave office, right?
Like, that's a real thing.
So. In the other cases, the normal cases, they have a story behind it.
And that story can be something like, I went into the ER and nobody knew what medications I was on.
So I wanted to create a law that requires doctors to find out what medications I'm on, right?
Requires that connection.
And And you guys use that law and it's in effect right now.
It's when you run the you run the report on the controlled substances that that patient may be on.
And so it started out as, hey, I want them to know all the medications that I'm on.
And it morphed into something else, which is now you have to check on which controlled substances that patient might be on, right?
And that was a story from a senator that I talked to.
And so these things may start out as something and then they morph into something else.
But the fact that it's a story and it's something that can be related to is extremely important because now you can actually go talk to senators and governors and relate this story to them.
And I remember when I was talking to another representative in Michigan and he was very passionate about helping the veterans.
And when I told him, hey, I could get medications at really cheap prices, he was like, hey, here is my office staff number.
You need to talk to this guy about healthcare laws and helping them, right?
And he also said, hey, if you ever need a passport, just call my office.
He's like, if you need like, you know, a couple days, just let me know.
Or if you, if the veteran is not getting their benefits, you can call my office and then we'll make a phone call.
And so I was like, oh, wow, that's pretty amazing .
So talking to these people actually helps you change laws.
And this is how many other DPC doctors have changed laws so that DPC is actually protected from the insurance regulars, right?
And it's just one of the ways that is important in changing these laws.
You can meet with and engage with these legislators directly, so you can call their office and say, hey, I'm with so-and-so company.
Can we meet , you know, which is your own company?
Can we meet and talk about things?
And you can schedule them and explain the benefits of DPC model.
And you can share real patient stories, right?
Heck, you could even ask a patient to go with you and say, hey, I would like to change these things .
And you can share these stories, or practice outcomes, and make the case for supportive laws that exempt DPC from certain regulations, right, which we really, really do not want, or maybe do something like expand tax advantaged account access, like HSA is for DPC membership .
And so you could also invite a legislator to visit your clinic and walk them through and see the difference.
And that's what I did for many of the patients who originally showed up to my like opening and I just walk them through what a typical a day would look like, or a typical visit would look like with in the practice.
So if you want to set up these meetings, you can go to Senate.dV.
You can also call, there's actually a Capitol Switchboard.
It's at 20-224-311. And they'll get you hooked up with your representative.
Now, the next thing you can do is you can partner with professional organizations, organizations.
And so one of those is the direct primary Care Alliance, which I am part of, and you can talk with them at say, hey, what are we doing?
Is there a main like forefront that we're fighting against?
Right?
And if they have one, everybody can get together, maybe go together and kind of have like a show of force at the Capitol and be like, hey, there's all these white coats here that are walking onto the Capitol.
I wonder what's going on.
And of course, it's important to also push it out through social media, things like this.
And you can go with them and talk to these representatives themselves.
But by joining these organizations, now you have a much huger voice that can be heard.
So you can go to your own senator in your state and say, hey, I'm with the direct Primary care Alliance.
Can we talk about certain things?
And we're able to represent, you know, so many thousands of physicians, right?
And they were like, oh, okay, so this is the bigger organization than just one person.
So you can partner with that professional organization and talk to them.
Plus, they will also have things like a legal team, a lobbyist, and like I said before, like ongoing campaigns that benefit from grassroots physicians, you know, input, and testimony, right?
Like you can go up there and testify, hey, hey, I'm from this state.
Here's what's happening in our state.
This is why our patients can't get good access to care.
I have my other podcast, which is Clear Health, the Clear Health podcast, and on there, I had Jeremy Counts, who was a pharmacist who created his own lobby group.
And he went out there and made changes to laws, just like the one I talked about in the beginning of this podcast.
You can also partner with the Chamber of Commerce, right?
And they can help you actually identify like city council members, county commissioners, state legislators, agency heads, and like staffers relevant to your issue.
If you can get in with one of their staff members, then that's really important.
So until, you know, this day, I still keep in touch with certain staff members that have relevant input to, you know, these representatives, like schedules and meetings and topics that they want to advance themselves.
And I just want to kind of make a side note that you have, as a physician, you have certain effects, right?
You have the effect on the individual right now.
And so this is like where you may have a single encounter with somebody and you help them and you treat them and they get better.
The other thing is, you may do group visits, right?
So that may be like the next one level of the number of people you impact within a certain given time period .
And so you do group visits, right?
Especially things for like, you know, weight loss and exercise and nutrition and stuff like this.
But there is a larger effect that you can have all at one time with advocating and with helping to change these laws.
So it kind of puts into perspective, like you were helping the single person, you know, mostly probably throughout residency.
And then now you can have the ability to have a much larger effect and help many more people get a lot healthier.
And the last thing you can do is you can educate and mobilize the public , right?
You can host like town hall meetings or webinars I can did on Facebook or maybe write blogs that helps inform the public about DPC.
And writing these blogs will actually drive people to your website and it will kind of help get the idea out about DPC.
And this actually creates pressure on like legislators from their constituents that want more healthcare freedom, right?
They see this and they're like, wait, this is this is something that, you know , we're doing, right?
Like, this is a reality that's out there.
And once they see that, then they'll be like, I, you know, maybe I should write to my congress member about this.
And during that time, you could also start or like start or support a local petition in favor of a DPC friendly bill.
And that will get you also out in front of the public and saying, hey, look, you know, I want to help introduce this bill.
How many people like it?
How many of you care about getting, you know, quicker access, longer access , and cheaper access, right?
Which they probably never heard that trifecta in the world of healthcare.
This will also help you practice talking to other people or talking to a group .
And you could also do things like blend a couple of things together.
You could blend together hypertension and direct primary care, right?
So you can introduce hypertension, talk about it for like 10, 15 minutes, and then the last five minutes, talk about direct primary care.
And this gets the world, you know, or gets your audience and educ educates them about this world of DPC.
And so they kind of get like a two for one, right?
They get to see the topic that they're interested in.
Maybe it's testosterone in men, or maybe it's periaminopause.
And you talk about that, then you talk about your own your own DPC practice.
So those are kind of three different ways you can advocate and you can even do this even when you're not in your practicing.
So you could do this while you're like in the, maybe work for a hospital system or you work for a group.
You can be like, hey, I want an advocacy day to go up and talk to my representatives and they can be like, yeah, that's a great idea.
And that's what I did before was I was like, hey, this is what I do.
I need a day off to do this, go talk to them.
And you can ask them, hey, what are some laws you want me to talk about?
Or maybe some topics you want me to talk about.
And you can carry that.
And so at the same time, you can get practice again and understand how these things work behind the scenes.
So ways you can learn about this more, you can go to DPC Frontierontier.org.org.
You can check that out.
You can go to the directct Primary Care Alliance and you can check that out as well.
You can also search in Google.
You can say local healthcare laws in whatever city you're in or whatever state you're in.
And you can learn about these local proposed laws, maybe what's coming up.
The other thing is you may follow activists on like Twitter or Instagram, where wherever you like to hang out there.
So I hope that was informative and there is a real possibility, like I talked about at the beginning of this podcast, for you making change in your life as well as everybody else's.
I hope you found that really informative and if you know anybody else, please forward this podcast to them.
It really helps out with my listener base and feel free to contact me on social media and ask me any questions.
And if you really like it, a nice five-star review would push the podcast a long way and help other physicians gain the freedom they deserve.
