CHCS - Perspectives Summer/Fall 2017

30 Nova Southeastern University Occupational Therapy Fort Lauderdale AOTA/ASHT Capitol Hill Day ELISE BLOCH, Ed.D., OT/L, and Rachelle Dorne, Ed.D., OTR/L, CAPS, occupational therapy associate professors, accompa- nied 10 Master of Occupational Therapy (M.O.T.) students to Washington, D.C., for the joint American Occupational Therapy Association/American Society of Hand Therapy (AOTA/ASHT) Capitol Hill Day on September 19, 2016. Leadership is a curricular thread in the M.O.T. Program, and occupational therapy (OT) faculty members hold important voluntary leadership roles in their professional groups. Bloch serves as secretary for the Florida Occupational Therapy Association Executive Board, while Dorne is on the American Occupational Therapy Political Action Committee Circle of Advisors. Representing the M.O.T. class of 2018 were Camille Hinds, Nina Laureano, Caitlin McRory, Lauren Ross, and Zoey Kramer. The class of 2017 members were Devan Cossu-Edwards, Rebecca Gilmore, Phillip Carsten, Kathryn Haston, and Autumn West. The 12-member NSU contingent joined more than 620 occupational therapy practitioners, educators, students and certified hand therapists from 38 states around the country, including more than 30 from Florida. NSU faculty members and M.O.T students attended a morning briefing with AOTA/ASHT representatives on four key pieces of bipartisan legislation affecting OT practice. The representa- tives reviewed the following bills: Enhancing the Stature and Visibility of Medical Rehabilitation Research at NIH Act (S. 800/H.F. 1631); Medicare Access to Rehabilitation Services Act (H.R. 775/S. 539); Medicare Home Health Flexibility Act (S. 2364); and the Lymphedema Treatment Act (H.R. 1608/S. 2373). These bills would protect patients’ access to Medicare services—including those provided by OT practitioners in outpatient clinics, personal residences, and other community settings—to promote their safety, independence, and engagement in meaningful activities (AOTA, 2016). Using the appointments made by the AOTA Congressional Affairs Office, most NSU participants met with legislative staff members in the offices of Florida senators Bill Nelson and Marco Rubio to advocate for support of the four bills. The participants then split up to visit staff of the members of Congress from their respective districts, with Bloch and Dorne accompanying out-of-state students from Georgia, New York, and Pennsylvania. Occupational therapy professors, practitioners, and students took turns explaining the distinct value of OT to the legislative staff and advocating for support of each bill, often sharing testimonies on experiences of clients and family members with unmet clinical needs. The group also mentioned the results of an independent study published in Medical Care Research and Review (Rogers, Bai, Lavin, and Anderson, 2016). The study concluded that for patients with heart failure, pneumonia, and acute myocardial infarction, higher spending on OT services was the only health care spending category where increased spending was associated with reduced hospital readmissions. Upon return from Capitol Hill Day, Bloch and Dorne met with students for a debriefing, to promote student membership in professional associations, and to continue advocacy efforts at the state and federal levels. The occupational therapy students also shared their perceptions of the value of their