On Friday, March 23rd, 150 ASHA leaders visited their Senators and Representatives on Capitol Hill to lobby for Medicare supplier status for SLPs and other legislative priorities. Last year's visits by ASHA leadership resulted in over 110 co-sponsors for legislation important to ASHA members. This year, Senators Ensign (R-NV) and Landrieu (D-LA) had introduced supplier status legislation (S. 45). One immediate result of the leadership's Capitol Hill visits was the introduction of companion legislation in the House of Representatives, H.R. 1774, on March 29th. On Monday, April 2nd, another 40 ASHA members, who were attending the annual ASHA SLP conference on health care, visited their Senators and Representatives and asked them to cosponsor H.R.1774 and S.45.

H.R. 1774 and S.45 would allow SLPs in private practice to treat Medicare patients and seek reimbursement from Medicare for those services. Further, Medicare beneficiaries would have greater choice in where to receive SLP services. This is especially important for beneficiaries in rural and minority communities who often need to travel a great distance to obtain SLP services. In addition, the federal government is developing a program under which SLPs and other providers can voluntarily report quality data on the services they provide. H.R. 1774 would ensure that SLPs directly benefit from any bonuses paid for participating in this program. In December 2006, the Senate leadership included SLP supplier status language in its Medicare proposal.

H.R. 1774 was introduced by Rep. G. K. Butterfield (D-NC) who is a member of the new Democratic leadership team and Energy & Commerce Committee in the House of Representatives. The bill is already cosponsored by Lois Capps (D-CA), Michael Ferguson (R-NJ), Jay Inslee (D-WA), Ron Lewis (R-KY) and Allyson Schwartz (D-PA). Â You can help ASHA continue to aggressively work for passage of this important legislation by urging your U.S. Representative and Senators to co-sponsor this legislation at takeaction.asha.org. For members of Congress who have already co-sponsored the bill (as described above), you can send them a thank you note for their leadership on this issue. For further information, please contact Elizabeth Mundinger, ASHA's Director of Federal and Political Advocacy, by e-mail at emundinger@asha.org or by calling 800-498-2071, ext. 4473.