JELF Scholar Update

Over the past few months, JELF members have been working hard to keep up with the rapidly changing landscape of healthcare funding and research. We have especially been focusing on proposed cuts to Medicaid. This topic has come into greater focus over the past month when the House Committee on Energy and Commerce passed a budget reconciliation bill that includes several Medicaid reforms. These changes include work requirements, more frequent eligibility review, and provisions to shift costs to states. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that these changes would cause approximately 8 million people to lose their insurance. Fortunately, the budget remains far from final passage, which allows for more time to advocate for continued coverage for our patients. The ASPN Public Policy Committee has created a form for patients or providers to share stories about how Medicaid cuts would impact them. You can access this form here: https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=z3nijuZOa0idu0UDaXsuU6ZwPpMQrLBApJzxGgcxF_lURTE2Ulk1RDVOVzVMRlhBUzBXUVczRDcyNC4u. These personal stories are crucial to helping policymakers understand the impacts their decisions have on our patients.

Though addressing advocacy topics like Medicaid cuts can be daunting, the JELF program is a strong community of providers interested in rising to these challenges. The PAS meeting in late April this year provided an opportunity for JELF members to connect in person at ASPN events, academic sessions, and sometimes out in the sunshine by the beach. I have come to greatly appreciate the personal and career support that JELF scholars and mentors provide for one another. Lela Villegas and I were able to share some of the accomplishments and joys of JELF with the larger ASPN community during the ASPN Business Meeting at PAS. We also celebrated this year’s graduating class (Lela Villegas, Julia LaMotte, and Kera Luckritz) during our JELF meeting in May with some excellent insight from prior JELF grads Dr. Anne Dawson and Dr. Ray Bignall. These speakers provided motivation for us to look at current health policies and consider how we can work towards change that best serves our patients.

My own policy focus has been prior authorizations, especially exploring how they impact patient care and clinical outcomes. I was able to share some of my work at PAS, showing that prior authorizations are associated with significant delays in infusible medication administration for pediatric nephrology patients. Fortunately, several state and federal policies are already in place or proposed to help reduce the burden that prior authorizations pose to patients and providers. Though more changes are needed, these measures create a stepping off point for ongoing advocacy work.