» WASHINGTON WATCH
Gearing up for the Year Ahead in Advocacy
are what makes events like AHIMA’s Hill
Day so crucial to our success and our efforts to move the association forward. We
want you to experience our Hill Day, help
us build relationships, and help us grow
AHIMA’s reputation not only in Washington, but in our state capitols as well. Join
us in March and become an advocate for
AHIMA by registering here.
It’s still early in the year, but AHIMA’s staff
has been working on a multitude of advocacy initiatives already. Two that will be
crucial to our overall efforts are planning
AHIMA’s 2010 Hill Day and developing
AHIMA’s new online Advocacy and
Public Policy Center ( www.ahima.org/
advocacy). These two initiatives are externally focused, provide critical information
on AHIMA and our key advocacy issues,
and put a face on the organization.
Planning for 2010 Hill Day
AHIMA’s 2010 Hill Day will once again
provide AHIMA members the opportunity to come to Washington and meet
with their representatives and senators to
discuss your profession, your component
state association (CSA), and AHIMA’s key
advocacy issues. This year’s Hill Day is
scheduled for March 23 and will be preceded by Team Talks on March 22
and followed by AHIMA’s Corporate
Sponsors event on March 24. For additional information on Hill Day, visit
www.ahima.org/events/winterteamtalks/
teamtalks-hillday.html.
Previous Success
The 2009 Hill Day brought nearly 175
AHIMA members to Washington, DC,
covering 38 states and attending 158
meetings on Capitol Hill. These meetings
helped AHIMA and its members create
and enhance a multitude of relationships
in Congress. For example, one of AHIMA’s
key advocacy issues for the 2009 Hill Day
was administrative simplification—
pursuing a method to streamline HIPAA standards development and updating process.
AHIMA’s Hill Day attendees provided
their representatives, senators, and staff
with legislative language and background
information for administrative simplification. As a result of our efforts, administrative simplification provisions were
included in the healthcare reform bills that
emerged from the House and the Senate.
This success story is not an isolated event.
Through the years, AHIMA’s members
have played an instrumental role in several
legislative successes including passage of
the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA), including elements of
the “ 10,000 Trained by 2010 Act” in the
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
(ARRA), and providing for the prompt
adoption of ICD-10-CM, ICD-10-PCS,
and the ANSI X12 5010 HIPAA transaction standard in several health information
technology legislative proposals.
AHIMA’s ability to achieve success is
enhanced greatly by you, its members. You
Looking Ahead
To be an effective advocate it’s important
to have good information. Just as important, advocacy information has to be easily
identified and easily located. With this as a
central theme, throughout 2009, members
of AHIMA’s Practice Leadership team and
Policy and Government Relations team
have been developing the new AHIMA
Advocacy and Public Policy Center at
www.ahima.org/advocacy.
Now all of AHIMA’s advocacy information focused on the industry and federal
and state governments can be found in one
place. The News and Alert section will discuss new and ongoing AHIMA advocacy
activities, official position papers, and a
calendar of events including opportunities
for AHIMA’s members and the public to
get involved with various initiatives. These
initiatives can be related to legislation,
regulation, quality, standards, workforce,
or other health information technology
related matters.
Combined with AHIMA’s Advocacy Assistant, the Advocacy and Public Policy Center
holds great promise for our efforts. In the
coming months, our redesign will continue
with the introduction of an HIM industry
blog, podcasts, press resources, advocacy
resources, and much more. Moving into this
new electronic healthcare environment, we
understand that AHIMA members remain
the main catalyst for change and for progress. We ask that you continue to embrace
your role and utilize the Advocacy and
Public Policy Center, join us for Hill Day,
and engage in advocacy to ensure that it is
AHIMA and HIM professionals who define
the HIM future. v
