At least in theory, the mission of ACCP’s Washington office is fairly simple. Consistent with ACCP’s core values and strategic plan, the Government and Professional Affairs team is focused on developing, positioning, and advancing clinical pharmacists within evolving payment and care delivery structures to help patients achieve medication optimization. Put simply, ACCP is committed to securing coverage – and payment – for pharmacists’ clinical services under Medicare and by other major health plans. However, although the team’s stated mission may be concise, the tactics and strategies employed to advance the College’s goals are far more complex and nuanced. This is because ACCP understands that Medicare’s mission is not to grant status to certain health professions as providers, but to ensure access to quality health care for the rapidly growing population of individuals over 65. ACCP’s advocacy efforts are thus entirely focused on establishing coverage for the comprehensive medication management service (“the what”) rather than seeking provider status for pharmacists (“the who”).

The Quadruple Aim is often considered central to the core principles of quality management in health care: improve the patient care experience, improve the health of a population, reduce per capita health care costs, and enhance clinical experience. As value-based care becomes more prevalent, coverage and payment are increasingly tied to quality and outcomes, all of which begin with patient care teams. ACCP believes that by integrating services that achieve medication optimization as part of this larger transition toward team-based care, the entire profession will achieve its long-term goals of payment for services.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has initiated a quality strategy vision focused on tying payment incentives to value through new payment models to improve care and integrating care teams through health information technology. Eliminating racial and ethnic disparities is considered foundational to implementing this strategy.

Friends of NCHS

The COVID-19 pandemic serves as an important reminder of the extent to which the United States relies on the flow of objective, credible statistics to support the decisions of governments, businesses, households, and other organizations. Any loss of trust in the integrity of the federal statistical system and its products can foster uncertainty about the validity of measures the nation uses to monitor and assess performance and progress.

The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) is the nation’s principal health statistics agency, providing data to identify and address health issues. NCHS compiles statistical information to help guide public health and health policy decisions. These health statistics allow NCHS to:

• Document the health status of the U.S. population and selected subgroups
• Document access to and use of the health care system
• Identify disparities in health status and use of health care by race and ethnicity, socioeconomic status, other population characteristics, and geographic region
• Track the impact of major policy initiatives
• Monitor trends in health indicators
• Support biomedical and health services research
• Provide data to support public policies and programs, including recent data on opioid overdose deaths

NCHS collects data on chronic disease prevalence, health disparities, teen pregnancy, infant mortality, disproportionate maternal mortality among African American women, ED use, causes of death, and rates of insurance, to name a few. These data sets are used across the federal government and play an essential role in making up the nation’s statistical and public health infrastructure.

ACCP is a longstanding member of the Friends of NCHS – a coalition of more than 250 organizations that advocate and support appropriate federal funding for NCHS. The Friends of NCHS advocate on behalf of NCHS to Congress. Its activities include:

• Sending joint letters to key members of Congress
• Making joint visits to members of Congress and their staff
• Coordinating briefings to demonstrate the importance of NCHS and the research it supports

NCHS health data are critical to helping officials better understand and confront some of the nation’s most pressing health concerns, including the opioid crisis and the spread of infectious diseases like COVID-19. Common stakeholders that use these data include the U.S. Census Bureau in informing its population estimates and projections, the Department of Agriculture in developing nutrition policies that guide multibillion-dollar federal food assistance programs, state and local governments, and public health officials, federal policy-makers, and health services researchers.

Looking to the future, ACCP supports additional funding that will allow NCHS to use its expertise to create a true 21st-century statistical agency and reaffirm its status as the world’s gold-standard producer of health statistics. With additional funding, NCHS will be able to link and integrate electronic health records with other data collection systems into its own data production processes.