**Spoiler Alert!** Although extremely important, this is rather a dry topic.
I don’t know how many of you have seen the APTA’s position paper on healthcare reform, but it makes interesting reading. In the paper Health Care Reform: 2009 — A Physical Therapy Perspective, the APTA states that it “strongly supports” healthcare reform from the perspective of enhancing insurance coverage, increasing patient access to care, and reining in unnecessary costs. Sounds good, doesn’t it?
Detailed points include guaranteeing patient access to affordable healthcare from their provider of choice, ensuring that rehabilitation services are part of standard insurance benefits packages, instituting direct access throughout the nation, repealing outpatient therapy caps, securing PT reimbursement for wellness and chronic care programs, and expanding health information technology incentives to include PT practice. Again, it all sounds good … but is there any hope these points will actually be included in the bill currently being fought over on Capitol Hill? There seem to be as many ideas of what healthcare reform should include as there are people in this country.
With so much rhetoric, information, and disinformation flying around, now is the time to discuss the facts and make our voices heard to protect our patients and our profession. Whether or not we choose to be members, the APTA is making an effort on our behalf, and that is much appreciated. But it’s time to put aside personal political affiliations and think about what will be the best way for everyone to receive quality care without restriction and without breaking the bank. Now is the time to talk among ourselves, forward ideas to senators and members of Congress, and think seriously about the future. What are the most important aspects of healthcare to you, as a PT or PTA? As a citizen? As a patient? As a taxpayer? As a family member?
The topic is too important to ignore.
Anne Ahlman, MPT
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