A Guide to Writing Your Members of Congress on Health Care Reform

Do not assume that Congress, President Obama, or his Administration understand that you are the third largest and most accessible health care profession; that pharmacists play a critical role in providing accessible, affordable and quality health care for patients; that more fully utilizing the pharmacists can further improve quality of care and decrease health care cost; or that they appreciate that by not addressing the nation's medication use problem we will miss a huge opportunity to improve the health of hundreds of thousands of patients. We need your help to educate policymakers about the important role of pharmacists in patient care.

Formal Letter Writing 101

• Be concise; provide just enough information to be informative
• Talk about your education/experience (classroom and direct patient care)
• Use patient-specific examples of interventions
• Emphasize the cost benefits and clinical outcomes of pharmacist services
• Include facts and statistics to support your argument
• Show your enthusiasm for your patients
• Don’t be rude or self-righteous
• Stay focused on one issue per letter; write another letter if you need to
• Use personalized stationery (If personalized stationery is not available, create some by adding your name and contact information at the top of the page)
• Include a formal heading and a formal closing (See below)

What to Write About

Facts

Statistics can be very helpful in providing evidence to support your argument. Be careful not to overwhelm the legislator with too many facts or complex medical data.  Try to use basic statistics that clearly represent our impact (cost savings, clinical outcomes, number of patients we serve, etc.).

Personal Stories

Personal stories have a huge impact on legislators.  Think of an intervention you made or one you witnessed in your pharmacy.  Alternatively, you can talk about one of the pharmacist demonstration projects (Asheville Project, Diabetes Ten City Challenge, etc).  Focus on the impact of pharmacist-provided patient care services.

How to Organize Your Health Care Reform Letter

1. Focus the entire letter around MTM services, since each comment is in response to the value of a pharmacist-provided patient care services. (Outline below)

Outline of “MTM Services” Letter

1. Introduction
2. Value of MTM
3. Conclusion

What to Include in Each Section

This is list is intended to be comprehensive, but not all-inclusive.  It is meant to give you ideas! Construct your letter based on the most important topics according to you.

Part 1: Introduction

• Introduce yourself.  This makes the letter personal and allows your reader to view you as a voter.  State the purpose of your letter. 
• Talk about your qualifications as the “medication expert.”  If you are a student, be proud of your education; tell him/her about your classroom and direct patient care learning opportunities.  Many legislators do not know how much training and experience pharmacists have.  It’s our job to educate them.

Part 2: Value of MTM

• The accessibility of pharmacists (to patients and their medication history).
• Pharmacists can oversee the patient’s complete medical profile (patients see multiple doctors, complicated regimens, complicated drug names, etc).
• Briefly describe MTM (how it can improve patient outcomes and reduce overall health care costs).
• The importance of having a medication expert as the MTM provider (drug interactions, drug-food interactions, side-effect management, elimination of excessive drugs, simplification of drug regimen, etc).
• Discuss specific clinical and economic outcomes. 
• Include a personal story of how your or a colleague's pharmacist clinical services impacted a patient’s outcomes.

Part 3: Conclusion

• Urge his/her support of pharmacist-provided patient care services in health care reform.
• Encourage him/her to contact you in the future with any questions regarding the issue.
• Include your address and contact info.

Contact Information

President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Phone: (202) 456-1111
Fax: (202) 456-2461
HealthReform.gov Public Comments Form 

APhA Members: Look up your Member of Congress in the APhA Legislative Action Center 
Senate.gov - US Senate
House.gov - US House of Representatives