What difference does it make to have an Academy member in Congress?
“One of the most gratifying things I do in Congress is to serve as your advocate,” Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, MD, R-Iowa, told fellow ophthalmologists Tuesday night.
The online event kicked off the 2024 OPHTHPAC® speaker series. During the intimate, hour-long conversation, Dr. Miller-Meeks described how she’s using her role as chair of the Veterans' Affairs Subcommittee on Health to fight for quality eye care.
The issue is doubly personal for Dr. Miller-Meeks, who joined the Army to pay for education that ultimately included medical school.
“We as physicians are outnumbered by all the other provider groups,” she said. “They want to do what you do and get reimbursed at the same rate that you get reimbursed, but not go through the sacrifices that you made in order to deliver the excellent patient care that you do.”
The House VA Health Subcommittee, which Dr. Miller-Meeks chairs, has been conducting oversight into the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Federal Supremacy Project. The Subcommittee held a round table in April 2023 and conducted a hearing on the national standards project in September 2023. Dr. Miller-Meeks invited Academy CEO Stephen McLeod, MD, to testify, where he was able to educate members of the committee about the dangers of expansion of scope of practice and the need to protect high-quality eye care for our nations’ veterans.
Dr. Miller-Meeks said another of our top concerns also resonates deeply with her: physician pay. Cases where “we're doing the care, we're not getting reimbursed is one of the things that got me into politics to begin with,” she said.
Well before the recent Change Healthcare cyberattack triggered major cash-flow issues for practices, Dr. Miller-Meeks had experienced firsthand the sacrifices doctors sometimes make.
“I can remember three times distinctly in my private practice career where I was getting no paycheck, bringing no money home as the only breadwinner in the family, so we could pay and retain our staff and pay our bills,” she said.
That firsthand knowledge is shaping Congress’ response to the cyberattack and other issues, she said. “It's the doctors caucus in Congress that actually thought about the physician part.”
Congress had first taken steps to help hospitals. But relationships like those OPHTHPAC helps strengthen paved the way for a plan to offer advance payments to physicians, too. “Your government relations people did a great job asking us to get on this issue,” she said.
Dr. Miller-Meeks’ firsthand knowledge also fuels her work on longer-term solutions. Calling the recent partial Medicare physician payment fix a “partial reprieve,” she said, “we’re going to continue working,” in reference to Congress creating long-term solutions and reforms to the Medicare payment system.
Congressional Retirements
Dr. Miller-Meeks also discussed the record number of retirements that will take place at the end of this Congress. Not only are there a large number of incumbents retiring, but many of these retirements include the loss of Committee Chairs like Energy & Commerce Chair Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., and critical champions for physicians and patients, like Michael Burgess, MD, R-Texas, Larry Bucshon, MD, R-Ind., and Brad Wenstrup, DPM, R-Ohio. These members have deep institutional knowledge that takes years to develop, Dr. Miller-Meeks said.
“It takes a long time to understand Congress” and how to get things done with all the regulatory entities. “It’s very complex. … This is the beginning of my fourth year, and I just have a small amount of knowledge.”
With multiple physicians retiring this year, including two of the three GOP Doctor’s Caucus Chairs, it’s more important than ever to help ophthalmology’s champions in Congress retain their seats and support physicians running for office.
“Ophthalmology was there every step of the way,” Dr. Miller-Meeks said of her initial, election to Congress in 2020, where she won by six votes.
OPHTHPAC not only helps elect and re-elect champions patients and physicians, but also gives the ophthalmology specialty a voice on critical issues like stabilizing and increasing Medicare reimbursement, protecting the highest quality eye care for veterans, reducing administrative burdens, and increasing patient access to treatment and care.