Important Advocacy Announcement!

Dear colleagues!

Happy PA week! Today’s theme is “Be an Advocate”, which couldn’t be more fitting considering the very exciting news we have to share! ARAPA has hired local counsel with an experienced lobbyist. He has over 30 years of lobbying experience in healthcare. Ron Fuller is well connected within the Arkansas government. He is helping with connections and networking. We are excited to have a champion for ARAPA in the governmental arena. Please read more about Ron and the experience he brings to the table in the attached document. ARAPAs advocacy focus is job parity and opportunity, visibility with payors, signature recognition, as well as modernizing our PA Act.

We need your help! ARAPA is actively searching for our constituents that have connections with Arkansas senators and representatives or other governmental persons of influence. It is imperative for us to seek out and cultivate these relationships in order to have sufficient support and find sponsors to advance our agenda. Please reach out to us through the website if you have a connection. 

Even if you don’t have a connection, you can make a connection! We’d love for all Arkansas PAs to reach out to their legislators today. Let them know you are a constituent, that you are a PA, and what a PA does (in honor of PA week). At this point we don’t have an “ask” (a defined legislative agenda) for you to promote. Our lobbyist thought it would be helpful to use this as an opportunity to educate our legislators on what PAs are and who their PA constituents are, so when we have our “ask” ready—the door will already be opened! Here are some additional tips:

• To find out who your senator is, check here.
• To find out who your representative is, check here.
• You can also find this information by downloading the Electric Cooperatives of Arkansas 2020 Legislative Roster from the app store of your mobile device.
• Not sure what to say? Check out this great article from AAPA.
• “Like” your senator and representative on Facebook! Ron tells us this is a very popular tool these days

 

Ron has forewarned us it is going to be a tough road ahead of us--largely because of the challenges Covid has placed on meeting with government officials. Additionally, a lot of their focus is on Covid-related issues, as well as the upcoming presidential election. Given these considerations, we need to work hard, and work together.

Finally, we would be remiss if we didn’t take an opportunity to thank AAPA for all of their support and guidance in this process. It is through their generous grant program that we are able to afford to hire our lobbyists. This is just one of the many ways our national organization is furthering our profession. We encourage you to keep your memberships active in both organizations to help to continue to advocate for our profession.

Thank you,

Your ARAPA Legislative Committee and Board of Directors