ASPS Executive Committee Approves 2021 Policy Priorities
ASPS's 2021 policy priority development process kicked off in the lead up to the 2020 ASPS Advocacy Summit, during which attendees and representative cohorts of ASPS's general membership were surveyed simultaneously to gather data on the issues that matter most to plastic surgeons and their patients. Following that outreach, ASPS advocacy staff surveyed Legislative Advocacy Committee (LAC) members to round out a dataset, which was then made available to LAC and ASPS leaders when approving the year's final priorities. In total, respondents weighed in on 15 potential federal issues and 20 potential state issues.
This process has proven successful over the last three years, as ASPS has continued its role as a strong advocate that casts an extensive net, while also concentrating on specific issues that are higher priorities to members. Those "core" priorities, which require the majority of ASPS's attention, include safeguarding physician reimbursement for out-of-network services and ensuring that practitioners cannot advertise in false or misleading ways.
The Society will also persist its efforts to protect patients from non-physician professionals who are seeking to expand their scope of practice, which remains a predominant issue at the state level. Other issues that ASPS will be advocating on this year include ensuring that physicians are currently and correctly privileged for the procedures they are performing, opposing efforts to tax cosmetic surgery and ensuring patients with congenital anomalies have insurance coverage for all necessary procedures.
The full federal and state priorities documents are available on plasticsurgery.org.