AGS Convenes First Public Policy Summit

AGS and ADGAP board members and policy leaders, and AGS staff and policy consultants gathered in mid March for the Society's first annual Public Policy Summit.

At the start of the two-day session, AGS' Public Affairs and Strategic Alliances Director Jennifer Mercurio, Esq, reviewed AGS' current policy priorities and initiatives. Mercurio noted that AGS' had recently expanded its public affairs team -- which now includes two additional staffers -- and had retained Wolf Block, the Society's new bipartisan Washington lobbying firm. The Society's expanded public affairs staff and its relationship with Wolf Block were already enabling the Society to do more in the policy arena, Mercurio explained. AGS is now able to focus on multiple policy issues simultaneously, she reported. It's been able, for example, to juggle advocacy efforts on behalf of adequate reimbursement, appropriate pay-for-performance measures, increased National Institute on Aging funding, the proposed Geriatric and Chronic Care Coordination Act, and Medicare coding - an important issue that Public Policy Advisory Group Vice Chair Peter Hollmann, MD, reviewed during the session. (See related story)

Mercurio also outlined strategies and approaches AGS could develop to further influence policy. In addition, she and Wolf Block representative Chris Cushing -- who offered an overview of the 110th Congress and noted that recent changes in Washington are likely to work to AGS' advantage -- briefed the group on potential future opportunities. These include opportunities surrounding the release of a pending Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, Cushing noted. AGS was instrumental in launching the IOM study, which is investigating, among other things, the projected healthcare needs of older Americans, and optimal ways to train and utilize the nation's health care workforce.

Briefed on the results of AGS' recent members' survey -- including members' policy concerns (see related story) -- participants devoted the lion's share of the March meeting to identifying the Society's top priority policy issues. On the first day of the session, they divided into three groups, each charged with identifying policy issues in which AGS should be involved, and then listing these issues in order of priority. Each of the three groups then presented its list to all participants, who came up with a consensus list of priorities. Finally, each participant ranked each priority according to both how difficult it would be to achieve and the impact each would have. Often, these were inversely related.

The following day, participants again divided into three groups, and each group came up with lists of strategies for accomplishing the policy goals identified as top priorities the previous day. All participants then identified the most promising strategies. These lists of priorities and strategies informed the Board's final policy vote during the annual meeting.