Colleagues:

As we move into the final months of the 102nd Congress, it is important for our professions to reinforce the need for S227 and HR 2267 (Home Health Care Planning Improvement Act of 2011) to move forward. 

The requirement for a physician to document our face to face visit with a patient in order for the patient to receive home health care services is a costly obstruction to accessing and receiving timely care. These pieces of legislation will remove that requirement, so that nurse practitioners can provide appropriate care for their patients in a timely and more cost-effective manner. 

Please email / contact our Maryland Senators who are NOT sponsors of this bill:

U.S. Senator Barbara Mikulski at http://www.mikulski.senate.gov/contact/shareyouropinion.cfm

U.S. Senator Ben Cardin http://www.cardin.senate.gov/contact/

Please email / contact our Maryland Representatives who are NOT sponsors of this bill: 

• Andrew P. Harris (R), 1st Congressional District

• C. A. Dutch Ruppersberger III (D), 2nd Congressional District

• John P. Sarbanes (D), 3rd Congressional District
• Donna F. Edwards (D), 4th Congressional District
• Steny H. Hoyer (D), 5th Congressional District

• Elijah E. Cummings (D), 7th Congressional District
• Christopher Van Hollen, Jr. (D), 8th Congressional District

Rep Bartlett, Roscoe G. [MD-6] sponsored the bill on 6/18/2012. Email / Contact him and thank him for his support of Advanced Practice Clinicians!

You can visit, call, or send your own letters via email or fax, or use the AANP Advocacy Center. http://www.capwiz.com/aanp/home/

For our DC colleagues, congratulations! Rep Norton, Eleanor Holmes [DC] sponsored the bill on 12/1/2011. Email / Contact her and thank her for her support of Advanced Practice Clinicians! 

For our colleagues in VA, DE, PA, and beyond - To see if your legislators are currently co-sponsors click this link: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/thomas.php 

If your legislators are not on the lists, it is important that you contact them now to obtain their support. Ask them to become co-sponsors and to support passage of this legislation after the election in the final session of this Congress.  

MAAPC will keep you posted on federal legislation as we learn about the regulations that pertain to APNs and PAs.

In Independence & Partnership,

Elaine M. Crain, MSN, CRNP

MAAPC Secretary