12/21/2023

Academy Advocacy Update 2023

in 2023, Our Advocacy Committee proved to be more than a supporting character. As we carefully tracked state legislation and provided testimony and support for larger state initiatives like OSMA's Gold Card Bill, we also sought out opportunities to launch projects impacting our members and all Ohio physicians. Our discovery of the public State Medical Board licensee roster including personal cell phones, emails, and addresses was our top priority. Thanks to the passage of House Bill 33, this personal information has now been removed.

In sharing this message to physicians, we had a received a huge response:

"Thank you for working on this. I have had a stalker before that followed me from an outing to work and tried to get narcotics off of me. Very scary what can happen very easily, if someone just makes a little bit of effort. No protection for us. This is a nice first step."

"This probably also explains all the email spam and cold calls I get on my cell phone from recruiters, pharma, etc. Thank you!"

"THANK YOU! I had found this roster googling myself last year and had the same concerns. THANK YOU for your work."

"Thank you so much to all involved for taking the initiative and leading this change on behalf of all Ohio physicians! I am grateful for your leadership and service."

Our work on this project continues as we seek ways to remove birthdates and other identifiers, along with the promotion of this data on social media:

In 2024, we will be partnering with the Academy's Education Committee pending outcomes of Senate Bills 83 and 109. We also aim to support the huge victory from OSMA regarding the $400M increase in Medicaid Reimbursement with a helpful breakdown of codes for physician members.

We are energized at the notion that although we are very much in the “David” camp relative to our size, with the right approach and people we can continue to take on "Goliaths" in the way of physicians' ability to practice. 

Anubhav Mital, MD
Chair, Academy Advocacy Committee