Take Action: How Clinicians Can Advocate for Medical Liability Reform

TDC Group’s dedicated Government Relations team advocates for our members to advance and defend medical liability reforms, safeguard patient access to care, and protect against legislation that would adversely impact healthcare professionals across the country. We fiercely advocate at the legislative, judicial, and regulatory levels and tracks thousands of pieces of legislation each year.

How You Can Get Involved

You, as clinicians, have a frontline perspective that elected officials value to educate them to make informed decisions on policy. Here are helpful tips about the process and how to approach interactions with legislators and policymakers.

Advocating for our members is at the core of TDC Group’s mission and has been since our inception. We have played an instrumental role in passing historic medical liability tort reform legislation on behalf of all healthcare professionals nationwide. We continue to fight to enact, preserve, and defend medical liability reforms through legislative and judicial advocacy.

State and federal elected officials annually introduce nearly 150,000 proposed laws. Of those, each year TDC Group tracks more than 4,500 legislative proposals that could affect our members’ ability to practice and their professional liability. Several of the most concerning bills are intended to roll back medical liability and tort reform laws. We actively advocate on many of those proposals.

We often work with members who want to engage directly with policymakers on a specific legislative matter. We also assist members who are involved in advocacy efforts through an organization representing healthcare professionals. Involvement might mean a grassroots call to action or meeting directly with elected officials.

The advocacy process encompasses two critical aspects: the long game, in which individuals and organizations develop trust, goodwill, and influence as educators on complex issues; and the short game, which focuses on immediate efforts and actions. It is important to invest in both aspects of advocacy.

The Long Game

Political capital, an invisible currency that must be earned over time, distinguishes a trusted partner from those who are not looking for a durable presence in the public policy arena. Building political capital includes pursuing policies that make sense, articulating a clear goal or mission, protecting credibility, and achieving large and small successes.

Consider introducing yourself to the elected officials who represent you. Your local members of Congress and state legislators typically have offices in their districts where you can meet with them. In-person meetings are a great way to establish yourself as a trusted resource on healthcare issues that policymakers can turn to when issues arise.

The Short Game

Sooner or later, healthcare practitioners who are invested in the long game and good public policy outcomes will face an issue that demands timely action. Recently, members have actively engaged in educating New Mexico’s legislators about the threat to their outpatient facilities caused by changing the state’s medical liability laws and in advocating in New York to ask the governor for a veto to stop a wrongful death proposal that would have a chilling effect on access to healthcare.

In the examples above—and in response to many more legislative proposals around the nation—our members have employed advocacy tools that make it easier to engage with and educate policymakers on the real-life consequences of their decisions. The basic elements outlined below can help you achieve a positive legislative interaction.

Connect the Dots

Identify who you are: Are you or your patients constituents? Do you deliver healthcare in the legislator’s district? Make a brief, compelling case about the nature of your practice, and why you care about the proposal.
Tie a personal insight to the proposal and your position; the power of a lived experience is an unmatched advocacy tool.

Keep It Simple

Be succinct. Time with legislators is often short and they are juggling a variety of issues. They usually won’t have time for a full tutorial, but they will benefit from a brief description of the positive or negative effects of a proposal.
Stay focused on the topic at hand and resist the urge or an effort to redirect the conversation to an unrelated matter.

Offer Your Expertise

Share your knowledge. As a healthcare expert, you know firsthand how changes to the law can upend access to care.
Leave the door open to serve as a future resource on healthcare or liability matters.

Protect Your Credibility

Never hesitate to admit when you don’t know the answer. Let your legislator know that you will follow up with the answer. Credibility is your No. 1 asset for longevity with policymakers.
Never underestimate the importance of being respectful and pleasant, even when discussing difficult or highly charged issues, and be courteous to staff and others in the legislative space as they are often around the capitol longer and possess a wealth of institutional knowledge.

Manage Expectations

Maintain realistic expectations about what a legislator can do to address an issue. Limitations may stem from the political environment, committee assignments, or lack of jurisdiction over a problem.
Prepare yourself for incremental change. Immediate action is not likely.

The goal of an interaction is to leave an elected official with the view that you are a valuable partner in developing public policy, the expert in the room, and a source of credible information.

Contribute to Political Action Committees

You can join The Doctors Company’s state and federal political action committees (DOCPACs), which support candidates for elected office that favor medical liability reform in their respective states and in Congress. By contributing to a DOCPAC, you can help us in the fight to protect the practice of good medicine.