News

5 October 2021: The Integrative Health Policy Consortium is conducting a search for an Executive Director.  Please share this announcement with interested parties,

Position Description:  IHPC is seeking a dynamic Executive Director (ED) with a background in and passion for shared governance or coalition leadership, and will work closely with the Executive Committee to help guide the organization to new heights, legislative impact, and expanded membership and membership engagement.  The ED will work from a home/personal office to oversee the implementation and adaptation of IHPC’s 2018- 2021 Strategic Plan including fundraising, advocacy, policy and legislative initiatives; develop, drive and implement IHPC’s annual legislative and policy agenda, engage in partnership building and grant writing, communications, marketing and public relations, membership, committee and board activities. This position will be to take a mature-start-up to the next level. The ED will also assist the BOD in driving the overall strategy for the organization and represent IHPC at the national level. The ED will focus on growth in the following areas: fundraising and grant writing, advocacy and legislative impact (state and federal), committee empowerment and impact, and BOD engagement.

IHPC is seeking an ED to improve sustainability, expand capacity and infrastructure through development and escalate impact through ongoing state and federal advocacy and legislative initiatives, membership growth and strategic policy transformation. The right fit will be an executive leader with experience in coalition type organization models or in shared governance, who enjoys working with a highly engaged and knowledgeable membership.
Responsibilities are identified below.
1. Fundraising/Financial Management
2. Legislative Coordination (State and Federal) (
3. Program Planning, Agency, and Community Partnerships
4. Executive Committee, Committees, and Board of Directors Support

The Executive Director will work closely with the Executive Committee and must be thoroughly committed to IHPC’s strategy and mission. Candidates should have:

• Demonstrated success leading and developing significant, successful philanthropic and corporate partnerships and relationships, grant writing, and member relations,
• Demonstrated leadership skills, particularly in shared governance environments along with administrative, budget management, and relationship management experience.
• Strong experience in executive management with coalition building in a transparent, collaborative, inclusive common ground environment is a significant plus.

Please email a cover letter summarizing your experience and desire to work at IHPC, along with a resume, to Beth Clay, Chair, Search Committee at IHPCEDSearch@gmail.com.  Applicants from diverse backgrounds are strongly encouraged to apply.

To read the full job announcement please click here:  2021.EXEC.DIRECTOR JOB DESCRIPTION. 10.1.2021

The American Society of Acupuncturists is hosting a Virtual Conference that runs September 10-12, 2021.

https://www.asacu.org/2021/07/asa-2021-virtual-conference/

To register click here:  https://www.asacu.org/product/asa-2021-virtual-conference/

Schedule of Events:

Day 1: Friday, September 10, 2021

12 noon – 12:30 PM EDT Welcome & Intro to ASA’s work

12:30 PM – 1:15 PM EDT – “Dry Needling/Trigger Point Acupuncture” An Overview
Stephen Cina, DAIH, MAOM, LAc., ATC, NASM CES, Dipl AC (NCCAOM), Amy Mager, DACM, LAc. (MA & NY), Dipl OM (NCCAOM)

“Dry Needling” is a divisive topic that has plagued our profession for far too long.  Acupuncturists need to understand how it originated, the technique/s for performing it, and how to best communicate our message to elicit change within healthcare.

In this introduction, we will explore the history of “Dry Needling,” its expansion in the US compared to other countries and describe how it’s applied today.  A review of both the biomedical and Chinese Medicine perspective of “Dry Needling” will be provided.  We will also introduce a variety of common referral patterns and identify the mechanisms leading to the development of trigger points.  Lastly, we will discuss advocacy and what “Dry Needling” means to Physical Therapists and Acupuncturists which will serve as a primer for the breakout session.

1:15 PM – 2:00 PM EDT – Lessons from the trenches 

Why does Medicaid matter? In the words of Jared West, “Medicaid coverage is integral to increasing access to acupuncture across the strata of American insurance, especially for patients in lower income groups.  Acupuncture is safe, effective and cost efficient and it reduces opiate use helping to combat the opiate epidemic… Thanks to increasing evidence driving new treatment paradigms, acupuncture is no longer “alternative” medicine.  We are becoming part of mainstream care.”  Hear this and other lessons from the trenches on Friday, September 10th.

2:00 PM – 2:30 PM EDT BREAK (in Remo) Meet new friends and connect with colleagues as we gather to chat at our discussion tables during our virtual coffee/tea breaks.

2:30 PM – 4:30 PM EDT: 2 Concurrent Breakout Sessions

Breakout Session 1:  Dry Needling/Trigger Point Acupuncture: “Time for a Paradigm Shift”
Stephen Cina, DAIH, MAOM, LAc., ATC, NASM CES, Dipl AC (NCCAOM), Amy Mager, DACM, LAc. (MA & NY), Dipl OM(NCCAOM), Mona Yuan, MS, LAc, PT, Dipl OM (NCCAOM), Bianca Beldini, DPT, MSOM, LAc, Dipl AC (NCCAOM)

Here we will delve deeper into the techniques utilized in the application of “Dry Needling” using video instruction and identify the areas where this technique is best applied.  Most importantly, we will openly discuss what “Dry Needling” means to you, the conflicts between professions and how best to position ourselves as experts in needle therapy.  Though information can empower advocacy, having the facts alone is not enough.  In this breakout session, we will laugh, we might cry, but hopefully you will gain a renewed perspective of how we can turn this difficult issue into an advantage.

Breakout Session 2: Equity, Access, and Medicaid
Christine Kaiser, DACM, LAc, LCH, FABORM, Dipl OM (NCCAOM), Afua Bromley, MSOM, LAc, Dipl Ac (NCCAOM), Beth Howlett, DAOM, LAc, Kelly Hora, MAc, DiplAc (NCCAOM)

Please join us for this live and dynamic panel with presenters:

Do you want to be paid to work in a hospital? Christine Kaiser will present on the acupuncture department at Connor Integrative Health and the creation of sustainable hospital-based jobs.

Afua Bromley will share how insurance coverage, especially Medicaid, leads to greater equity and access to acupuncture care.

We know that insurance coverage is the key to sustainability, but how do we get there?

Last, but not least, Beth Howlett will host a case study that demonstrates strategic planning and policy in the making.

4:30 PM – 5:30 PM EDT Conference Party

Join us for music, puzzles and prizes as we gather to chat with old friends and make new ones at our round table gatherings!

Day 2: Saturday, September 11, 2021

12 noon – 12:30 PM EDT – Reduction in Scope & Licensure Gained: Lessons from our states. 

12:30 PM – 1:15 PM EDT – Advocacy, Medicare and Insurance and the Role YOU play 

Mori West, Nell Smircina, DAOM, LAc, Dipl OM (NCCAOM)

Get the history behind how acupuncture has been included in Medicare and general insurance. Want to increase your scope of practice or have issues you’d like addressed?  We’ll explain what you can do at the grassroots level as well as what you can do through your state association.

1:15 PM – 2:00 PM EDT – How to Judge Herbal Medicine Studies as a Treatment for Symptoms of COVID?

Misha R. Cohen, OMD, LAc, Lisa Conboy, MA, MS, ScD, Linda Robinson-Hidas, DACM, LAc

Let’s look at some of the published information about how herbs have been used to treat symptoms of Covid 19. Together we will critique  a scientific article. We will look at the types of claims we can make and the consequences of overstepping this limit. This will give you the tools to evaluate what information comes across your desk.

2:00 PM – 2:30 PM EDT BREAK (in Remo) Meet new friends and connect with colleagues as we gather to chat at our discussion tables during our virtual coffee/tea breaks.

2:30 PM – 4:30 PM EDT:  2 Concurrent Breakout Sessions:

Breakout Session 1: Insurance, Medicare and Advocacy – How YOU fit in

Mori West and Nell Smircina, DAOM, LAc, Dipl OM (NCCAOM)

Learn how state associations are advocating for the profession, understand what YOU can do versus what a trade association can do when working with insurance carriers.  We’ll review Bill Track 50 and how you can stay on top of legislative efforts in your state and nationally.  We’ll review the current Medicare policy and look forward to what Medicare inclusion will look like. Finally we’ll discuss current trends in Insurance and how they affect YOU!

Breakout Session 2: Evaluating the evidence-Why didn’t effective treatments for COVID 19 make the national news?

Misha R. Cohen, OMD, LAc, Lisa Conboy, MA, MS, ScD, Linda Robinson-Hidas, DACM, LAc

We will review different types of study designs and the conclusions that can be made from them. Together we practice finding, interpreting, and critiquing scientific articles. We will recognize different types of articles and their type of evidence. We will ask, “Does the evidence support the question and was it even the right question?”. This will be a deeper dive into understanding how research can further the acceptance of Herbal Medicine.

Day 3: Sunday, September 12, 2021

12 noon – 12:30 PM EDT ASA State Legislative & COVID Highlights

12:30 PM – 12:45 PM EDT Student Activities

12:45 PM – 1:30 PM EDT Professional Organization Updates

Join us for an interactive presentation as ACAOM, CCAHM and NCCAOM will present updates on these organizations that guide our profession.

1:30 – 2:00 PM EDT BREAK (in Remo) Meet new friends and connect with colleagues as we gather to chat at our discussion tables during our virtual coffee/tea breaks.

2:00 – 3:00 PM EDT Cultural Competency

What’s in a Name? The Journey to Naming Our Profession
Afua Bromley, MSOM, LAc, Dipl Ac (NCCAOM), LiMing Tseng, MAcOM, LAc, Dipl OM (NCCAOM)

Throughout the past few decades, the name of our profession has had many manifestations: Acupuncture, Traditional Chinese Medicine, East Asian Medicine, Oriental Medicine, Asian Medicine, Traditional Medicine, etc. In this course, we will learn about the history of “the naming” as we engage in the conversation to choose the terminology for our profession. We will explore the naming process through the lens of history, cultural humility and advocacy. Your participation in this course will help lead this process of constructive dialogue in naming our profession.

3:00 – 4:30 PM EDT Steps Forward for the Acupuncture Profession

Stephen Cina, DAIH, MAOM, LAc., ATC, NASM CES; Tuesday Wasserman, DACM, LAc; Lisa Conboy, MA, MS, ScD; Nell Smircina, DAOM, LAc, Dipl OM (NCCAOM)

We are stronger when we work together. As we wrap up our ASA 2021 Conference, we will recap the issues that affect our profession: insurance, equity & access, Medicaid, Medicare, insurances, dry needling, herbalism and research. We can learn the steps that we can all take to help build our profession.

Biosketch:

Afua Bromley, MSOM, LAc, Dipl.Ac (NCCAOM), is the current treasurer and former Chair (2017-2020) Her service as Commissioner on the NCCAOM Board of Commissioners began in 2014. Afua is also the co-Chair of the NCCAOM & ASA Acupuncture Medicine Cultural Competency Task Force.  She served on the Missouri Governor’s Acupuncture Advisory Committee (Missouri’s acupuncture regulatory committee) from 1999-2006, helping write the rules and regulations for the State of Missouri after its licensing law was passed. Afua is a past President of the Acupuncture Association of Missouri. In addition to her private practice in St Louis, she is also the founder and executive director of Universal Holistic Healthcare Services, a 501c3 nonprofit that works towards increasing access to integrative medicine for underserved populations domestically and globally.

Stephen Cina MAOM, LAc., ATC, NASM CES is the Chair of the ASA Student Leadership Committee. He specializes in integrating Eastern and Western medical approaches for the treatment of orthopedic conditions and pain disorders. For the past 13 years he has treated numerous patients, from professional athletes to those with chronic and debilitating pain conditions.  He serves as Chair of the Orthopedic Acupuncture Department at the New England School of Acupuncture (NESA), where he instructs graduate students in Orthopedic Acupuncture, Orthopedic Assessment and an Orthopedic Specialty Clinic. He also conducts workshops in integrative anatomy via Cadaver Dissection for pre and postgraduate students.

Stephen has served as the team acupuncturist for the Boston Bruins since 2001 and includes in his accomplishments team acupuncturist for the New England Patriots, acupuncture researcher at Massachusetts  General Hospital Martino’s Center for Biomedical Imaging, guest instructor at Tufts University School of Medicine and its Pain, Research Educational and Policy Program.

Misha Ruth Cohen, OMD, LAc, Dipl CH, Dipl Ac (NCCAOM) is the Executive Director of the Misha Ruth Cohen Education Foundation, which runs the HIV Care Wellness Program of Quan Yin Healing Center. She is the director of Chicken Soup Chinese Medicine, and a former Research Specialist of Integrative Medicine at the University of California Institute for Health and Aging, all in San Francisco. She has been a member of the board of directors of the Society for Integrative Oncology and is active in SIO. Dr. Cohen has been practicing traditional Asian medicine for the past 45 years.

Misha was trained in acupuncture at Lincoln Hospital’s Detox Program in the South Bronx under the auspices of the Quebec School of Acupuncture. She received her doctorate in gynecology from SFCAOM in 1987. For more than thirty-five years, she has developed treatment protocols for people with HIV/AIDS. She was a member of the Ad Hoc Subpanel on Alternative and Complementary Therapy Research of the NIH Office of AIDS Research and in 1996 was selected by POZ Magazine as one of 50 top AIDS researchers.

Lisa Conboy, MA, MS, ScD,  is the Chair of the ASA Research Committee and the Director of Research at the New England School of Acupuncture/MCPHS. She is an instructor of research methodologies at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School. Lisa has over 20 federally-funded grants awarded, addressing effectiveness of acupuncture, integrative medicine, and placebo response in medicine.

As a social epidemiologist and a sociologist with an interest in the associations between social factors and health, she is published in the areas of Women’s Health, Complementary and Alternative Medicine, Integrative Medicine, and qualitative research methodology. Lisa is the primary or co-author on 50+ peer-reviewed publications, multiple book chapters, and editorials; and has been presenting at professional conferences since 1994.

Olivia Hsu Friedman, DACM, LAc, Dipl OM (NCCAOM) is the Chair of the American Society of Acupuncturists. Before serving on the ASA Board of Directors she was one of two ASA Illinois delegates and served on the Illinois Society of Acupuncturists as Vice President. Olivia serves on the Advisory Board of LearnSkin and the NUHS Presidential Alumni Advisory Board. She earned a DACM from PCOM, a diploma in Traditional Chinese Medicine Dermatology from Avicenna UK, and an MSOM from National University of Health Sciences.

Prior to becoming an acupuncturist, Olivia worked in corporate America with Fortune 500 marketing executives for 25 + years to identify, create and implement new business opportunities.  This experience afforded the knowledge to guide and implement business plans, maximize group performance, develop organizational structure, increase profitability, and direct short- and long-term organizational strategy. Olivia practices TCM Dermatology 100% online utilizing only herbal medicine in her Chicago based private practice.

Beth Howlett, DAOM, LAc, is the Vice President of Academics of the AOMA Graduate School of Integrative Medicine. Before transitioning to AOMA, she was the vice president of communications and academic services where she managed the student services department, including academic advising, admissions, registrar, disability access services, counseling and alumni relations at OCOM. In prior roles at OCOM, Dr. Howlett was also director of communications, and admissions and community education coordinator. She is an adjunct faculty member in areas of research, ethics and jurisprudence, study abroad in China, community outreach and comparative health professions and practices. She served as a faculty member on numerous committees, including the College Research Committee. In addition to teaching, Dr. Howlett brings over a decade of experience in non-profit governance and professional leadership through her service on the Oregon Association of Acupuncturists and Oregon Collaborative for Integrative Medicine’s Board of Directors.

Christine Kaiser, DACM, LAc, LCH, FABORM, Dipl OM (NCCAOM) serves as the Clinical Manager of Acupuncture and Quality at University Hospitals Connor Integrative Health Network. She is a Licensed Acupuncturist and Chinese Herbalist and integrates Chinese medicine into the UH Fertility Center and the UH Ahuja Total Joint Replacement program. As a Fellow of the American Board of Oriental Reproductive Medicine (FABORM), she is board certified in treating fertility issues with Chinese Medicine.

For the past 15 years, Christine has been a heartfelt and compassionate practitioner of Chinese medicine. Christine has completed advanced herbal studies at the Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and a two-year teaching residency at the Bastyr Center for Natural Health in Seattle, providing thoughtful care while supervising and training students. Christine served as adjunct faculty at Bastyr University teaching students both in the classroom and clinic. She is the President of the Ohio Association of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine and past Treasurer and Co-founding Board Member of the Maternity Acupuncture Association.

Amy Mager, DACM, LAc. (MA & NY), Dipl OM (NCCAOM) is the ASA Vice Chair of Public Policy and has been serving on the Board since 2016. She has been working in complementary medicine since she began acupuncture school in 1986 at the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Amy also had the privilege of apprenticing with Raven Lang, OMD for a year and a half who had been a midwife for 20 years before becoming an acupuncturist. Amy got to study with Raven’s teacher, the world-renowned Dr. Miriam Lee. Amy graduated from ACTCM in 1989 and passed the CA Acupuncture boards which licensed her as a primary care provider in that state.

Since then, Amy received advanced training at the Post-Graduate Institute of Oriental Medicine in Hong Kong, went through a Certification program in Women’s Health with Sharon Weizenbaum, LicAc, became a trained birth educator, birth assistant and certified lactation counselor.

Amy served as Secretary of the Acupuncture Society of MA from 2013-2018 as well as its dry needling chair. Amy completed her first professional doctorate 12/17 and became a Fellow of the ABORM, American Board of Oriental Reproductive Medicine May 2018.

Linda Robinson-Hidas DACM, LAc, Dipl OM (NCCAOM) is the Chair of the ASA Herbal Committee. She earned her Masters in Traditional Chinese Medicine from the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine in 1989 and her DACM from the Pacific College of Oriental Medicine.  She is Board Certified in Oriental Medicine by the National Commission for the Certification in Oriental Medicine, a joint certification in Acupuncture, Chinese Herbs and Oriental Massage. Linda studied massage at the Scherer Institute, graduating from the 1000 hour program in 1983. She is a past president of the Acupuncture Society of Massachusetts.

Nell Smircina, DAOM, LAc, Dipl. OM (NCCAOM) is an advocate, educator and practitioner with a focus on the integration of acupuncture into America’s standard of care. Nell is the President of CSOMA, California’s oldest state acupuncture association and serves on the Advocacy Committee for the American Society of Acupuncturists. As the Director of Development for the American Acupuncture Council, she actively works to support the profession through many strategic initiatives, including work with WHO to further develop ICD11 codes which include Traditional Medicine diagnostics.

As the Founder of PIQUE Health, an integrative concierge medical practice in Beverly Hills and Scottsdale, Nell provides an elevated healthcare experience for patients and opportunities for practitioners looking to work clinically without worrying about running a business. Nell values mentorship, and has taught in many AOM schools on the topics of practice management, professional development, and messaging. She believes being able to effectively communicate our medicine’s value to the public is critical to the growth of the profession.

LiMing Tseng, LAc, MAcOM, Dipl OM (NCCAOM) is a Chair of the ASA Conference and co-chair of the NCCAOM ASA Acupuncture Medicine Cultural Competency Task. She is a former Board member and secretary of the American Society of Acupuncturists (ASA) (2015-2021), and a former ASA Rep for the Vermont Acupuncture Association. Li has recently completed a Diversity & Inclusion certificate program from Cornell University. Aside from her acupuncture volunteerism, she maintains a private acupuncture practice in Stowe, VT.

Tuesday Wasserman, DACM, LAc, is the Chair of the ASA Medicaid Committee. Since graduating from the Seattle Institute of East Asian Medicine in 2010, she has been working with patients in an outpatient setting, as well as in private practice, currently in Boulder, CO. Tuesday worked with the Acupuncture Team at NYU Langone Hospital (formerly Lutheran Medical Center) treating patients in the Neurology and Orthopedic Rehabilitation and Labor and Delivery wards from 2015-2017.

She serves as Program Director of the Pacific College doctoral completion program. Before joining PCHS, she served as a faculty member at the Southwest Acupuncture College, where she supervised clinical treatment and taught Internal Medicine and Obstetrics and Gynecology from a Traditional Chinese Medicine perspective.

Mori West is the Chair of the ASA Insurance Committee. She is the president of AcuClaims/ChiroClaims, a company she started that provides insurance billing services to acupuncturists and chiropractors since 2007. Today, her company handles billing for over 175 offices nationwide. Mori is an Advisory Board Member and Founding President of the Southern California Chapter of the American Medical Billing Association. She was a former board member of the California Acupuncture Association, California State Oriental Medicine Association and the American Assoc of Acupuncture & Oriental Medicine. Mori is a popular guest lecturer at Acupuncture Colleges and various Acupuncture State Associations where she lectures on medical billing and insurance issues.

David W. Miller, MD, LAc. and colleagues recently published, “Incorporating Acupuncture Into American Healthcare: Initiating a Discussion on Implementation Science, the Status of the Field, and Stakeholder Considerations” in Global Advances in Health and Medicine.  The article reports on a 2019 meeting funding by a grant to the Society of Acupuncture Research from the the Patient-Centers Outcomes Research Institute that included stakeholders from across a spectrum of healthcare involved individuals ranging from government to philanthropists, to patients, and clinicians. The focus of the meeting with implementation science and its relationship to acupuncture.

This is an important article with benefit the entire field of integrative health care.

The article may be read online:  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8404666/pdf/10.1177_21649561211042574.pdf

 Bills Addressing Social Determinants of Health in the117th Congress (2021-2022)

 Click the hyperlink of the Bill number to read the bill and sponsor lists.

For decades there has been discussion of the over-medicalization of childbirth and end of life care. As a result, health care costs have risen, and the sacred time of transitions involving birth and death has been disrupted. Whether from a cost perspective, a need to increase the number of perinatal team members, or an increased market demand for honoring the sacredness of childbirth, the decades of work advocating for less medicalization of childbirth by the integrative health professions is paying off in 2021.

There are currently 60 bills introduced in the United States House and Senate in which midwives and/or doulas are either mentioned or the direct focus of the legislation. Within the bills are requested coverage for direct education for midwives through grants to the schools to expand the number of midwives available; instructions to ensure the same level of reimbursements for nurse practitioners and certified nurse-midwives in Medicaid as in part B of Medicare; the utilization of doulas after a pregnancy loss; a research proposal that will study ways to diversify the perinatal workforce and advance respectful maternal care delivery models. (An overview follows this article, and bills are available for a more detailed review at https://congress.gov.)

The 117^th Congress has 16 more months in which to move these bills through the legislative process into public law. If this is an important advocacy step for you or your organization, please write or call your legislators and ask them to sign on in support of the bill. Additionally, ask your organization to issue a public endorsement of the bill, using social media to share that endorsement with the bill’s sponsors.  If you are an individual, please issue your own public endorsement of the bill(s) you support. Please also share any bill indorsements with IHPC via at communications@ihpc.org and share on our Facebook page.

Three Exceptional Ten-Minute Highlights from the Nat’l Academy of Medicine Workshop on Health Care Financing

Dr. Margaret A. Chesney, Special Advisor to IHPC,
Professor of Medicine, UCSF

The National Academy of Medicine recently held a Workshop Series that is highly relevant to integrative health and wellness. The COVID-19 pandemic and the ever-rising health care costs serve as dual alarms calling for reforming the health care system.  In 2020, the U.S. led the world with its health care spending, accounting for 18% of the nation’s GDP (Gross Domestic Product).  This translates to over 4 trillion dollars spent on the nation’s health care system that still leaves many Americans without care.

As health care undergoes change, there is an opportunity to shift the focus from the current Disease-Focused System to one that targets Health Creation and Care.  This workshop, focused on such a possibility, was entitled Financing That Rewards Better Health and Well-Being.

The Workshop was presented over three days, with presentations and discussions covering over 10 hours. Links to each day’s presentations and their respective playlists on YouTube are below.

Special Highlights – Here, IHPC has selected a special highlight from each day of the workshop.

Workshop Day 1 Highlight: Dr. Ben Kligler, Executive Director for the Office of Patient Centered Care and Cultural Transformation, Veterans Health Administration, gives an outstanding “primer” on the VA and the Whole Health Program – the largest existing Whole Health program to be carried out in the nation, transforming health care from treating diseases to promoting whole person health.  This program involves health coaches and whole health partners who are Veteran peers who help change the conversation from “what’s the matter” to “what’s most important for you in your life?”

To hear Dr. Kligler’s 10-minute presentation – click on the link below to hear Dr. Hoangmai (Mai) Pham’s introduction and Dr. Kligler’s overview of VA Whole Health.

Workshop Day 2 Highlight: Dr. Fasih Hameed, Family Physician, Associate Medical Director for Wellness at the Petaluma Health Center provides one of the “Innovation Spotlight” presentations at the workshop.  Dr. Hameed’s description of this Federally Qualified Health Center offers a comprehensive and inspiring program of integrative approaches to heath and wellness for individuals, families, and the community.  The Petaluma Health Center provides living proof that integrative programs are being implemented by dedicated, creative professionals in some of the most challenging settings, bringing health to entire communities, young and old.

To hear Dr. Hameed’s 10-minute presentation, click on the link below and advance the video to 1 minute 7 seconds to hear an introduction by Dr. Sarah Szanton’s introduction of Dr. Hameed’s exceptional presentation.

Workshop Day 3 Highlight:  Dr. Donald Berwick, Lecturer of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School; President Emeritus and Senior Fellow, Institute for Healthcare Improvement; Former Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

Dr. Berwick presents an inspirational argument that the health care system must be changed and all proposals for change must “start and end” with serving the people and community we want to help.  In just over 10-minutes, he outlines new aims beginning with universal coverage, that he states can be achieved at less cost, and that should focus on what matters to patients and families. Continue to the discussion moderated by Dr. Kisha Davis (of Aledade) with Dr. David Muhlestein (of Leavitt Partners) and Vivian Lee (of Verily).

A Must Listen – Don’t miss the last minutes of the clip as Dr. Berwick closes with the challenge that “We need to touch base with… what kind of nation we want to be.” … “I think we’re going to find that we have a lot of possibilities we’ve not exploited.”  However, he identifies another challenge saying, “The part I can’t solve right now is the power of the incumbents… are monied, very wealthy, very connected, and they prefer the status quo.” In the last seconds of the final session of the workshop, Dr. Berwick closes by saying, “At some point we’re going to have to get disruptive, and I’ll look forward to that journey.”

To hear Dr. Berwick’s presentation, click on the link below and advance the video to just over 30-minutes (to 30.46) to hear Dr. Berwick.

On June 16, IHPC Co-Chair Margaret E. Erickson PhD, RN, CNS, APRN, APHN-BC on behalf of the IHPC members sent a letter to the New CMS Administrator, Chiquita Brooks-LaSure. 

The letter in part stated,”  On behalf of the Integrative Health Policy Consortium (IHPC), we are writing to congratulate you on your recent confirmation to serve as the next Administrator of the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). IHPC is a broad-based coalition of organizations whose mission is to eliminate barriers to health. IHPC includes 26 organizations representing more than 650,000 state licensed, certified and/or nationally certified healthcare professionals, including medical doctors, registered nurses, doctors of chiropractic, naturopathic doctors, nutritionists, licensed acupuncturists, licensed massage therapists, and academic, research, clinical, and public education organizations.

In recent years, the consortium has worked closely with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to develop and promote recommendations issued by the non-partisan Pain Management Best Practices Inter-Agency Task Force Report of 2019. This report, which was led by the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health (OASH), highlighted pain as a leading health challenge to the nation and its direct impact on the opioid crisis. In addition, the report documented considerable evidence regarding health disparities in racial and ethnic minority populations in the prevalence and treatment of pain-related conditions that are attributed to factors of our current health systems. We look forward to working with HHS officials, including the CMS, to resume efforts regarding implementation of the report’s recommendations.”

To read the full letter, go to: IHPC Letter Welcoming New CMS Administrator

About Administrator Brooks-LaSure:  Administrator Brooks-LaSure earned an A.B. in Politics from Princeton University in 1996 and a Master of Public Policy from Georgetown University in 1999. She began her career at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) as a program examiner and lead Medicaid analyst. She then moved to the U.S. House Committee on Ways and Means’ Democratic staff, where she worked on the ACA and the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act (MIPPA) of 2008. Brooks-LaSure then joined the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight (CCIIO) within CMS, which oversees federal health insurance-related laws and the ACA. There, she led ACA implementation with respect to coverage and insurance reform during the Obama-Biden administration.

Prior to her confirmation, Administator Brooks-LaSure was Managing Director of Manatt Health at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP, where she consults on health care financing issues. She served on the Board of FAIRHealth, a nonprofit working to increase health care cost transparency.  She has been a consultant for The Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation that aims to improve access, quality and efficiency in health care, especially for vulnerable populations (including low-income individuals, the uninsured and people of color). In September 2020, Governor Northam of Virginia appointed her to the Virginia Health Benefit Exchange Advisory Council.  She also led the HHS agency review team for the Biden-Harris Transition Team.

On May 19 and June 18, IHPC submitted written testimony to the House and Senate Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations Subcommittees in support of funding programs important to the integrative health community under the subcommittees’ jurisdiction. Specifically, IHPC called on these vital congressional subcommittees to support funding for the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as well as the NIH, and the Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) program within the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). In addition, IHPC’s testimony asks Congress to support the inclusion of report language accompanying the bill, urging the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to implement recommendations issued by the HHS Pain Management Best Practices Inter-Agency Task Force.  The complete Senate testimony, which mirrors the House testimony which was submitted officially by Dr. Margaret Erickson, IHPC Co-Chair, is posted at: IHPC Senate Labor HHS Education 6-21 Testimony

On June 29, the U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Committee released its version of a report accompanying the Fiscal Year 2022 Military Construction, Veterans Affairs appropriations bill. The report, which was to be officially approved and released after the Committee passes or “marks up” the underlying bill on June 30, includes language endorsed by IHPC. The language, which was submitted by Congressman Tim Ryan (D-OH), a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee, praises the Department of Veterans Affairs Whole Health System (WHS) and urges the Department to use funding in the bill to expand the WHS to all VA facilities.  The report goes on to state that the Committee provided $10 million more than the Administration requested for WHS to expand this successful program.  Note that it doesn’t say “to all VA facilities,” so the funds can be used to expand the program, more generally. 

 The actual language, as it appears in the report, is below. IHPC is very grateful to Congressman Ryan and his staff for their support and leadership and for the grassroots action that IHPC members took to encourage its inclusion. The bill and its accompanying report will now go through additional legislative steps before becoming law; however, this step is very encouraging.

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WHOLE HEALTH INITIATIVE
Traditionally, Veteran medical providers have focused on the physical symptoms of Veterans, zeroing in on their diseases and ailments. However, VA is continuing to work to expand this focus by incorporating a whole health model of care, which is a holistic look at the many areas of life that can affect a Veteran’s health including their work environment, relationships, diet, sleep patterns, and more. Whole Health is an approach to healthcare that empowers and enables the Veteran to take charge of their health and well-being and live their life to the fullest. The Committee is extremely pleased with the Whole Health model of care and includes $83,600,000 in the bill, which is $10,000,000 above the request, to continue to implement and expand Whole Health to all VA facilities.

Continued Support and Expansion for Whole Health. –  Recent data about the Whole Health System reveals participation increased more than 140 percent between 2017 and 2019, resulting in a 24 percent drop in total healthcare costs among the participating Veterans. Additionally, a recent survey found that 97 percent of Veterans are interested in using Whole Health. The Committee is pleased by this evidence that points to the ability of the Whole Health System to deliver care efficiently and effectively to our nation’s Veterans, and urges VA to continue supporting the program and to expand it further in fiscal year 2022.

“The Integrative Health COVID Experience”

On June 24, the Integrative Health Policy Consortium (IHPC), with support from the Congressional Integrative Health and Wellness Caucus, sponsored a virtual briefing, “The Integrative Health COVID Experience.” The briefing, which was moderated by Ms. Terri Roberts, Executive Director, American Holistic Nurses Association, featured the experience of three integrative health care providers during the pandemic. The briefing was also an excellent opportunity to highlight for congressional offices necessary policy changes that could benefit the integrative health care community and the patients that they serve.

The briefing began with welcoming remarks by the Caucus Co-Chairs, Congresswoman Judy Chu (D-CA) and Congresswoman Jackie Walorski (R-IN). Both members reflected on the essential role integrative health care providers play in delivering patient care for wide range of conditions, including pain management and addiction. The congresswomen also urged offices to join the Caucus and learn more about the field of integrative health care.

The briefing featured presentations by three practitioners: Marci Resnicoff, Clinical Nurse Coordinator for the Lerner Health Promotion-Integrative Health Department at NYU-Langone Hospital-Brooklyn; Dr. Jaquel Patterson, a naturopathic physician and the medical director of Fairfield Family Health in Fairfield, Connecticut; and, Jeannie Kang, a seasoned Asian Medical Doctor and acupuncturist based in the Los Angeles metropolitan area.

The speakers reflected on their experiences during the height of the COVID pandemic and how it affected their patients. Ms. Resnicoff described how she focused on addressing staff self-care, providing overworked and stressed medical staff with resources and tools to manage their own health and well-being. Her presentation illustrated how caring for frontline health care workers enhances patient recovery. Dr. Jaquel Patterson reflected on her expanded use of telehealth during the pandemic. Further, she reinforced the point that integrative health care practitioners provide coordinated care and are accustomed to treating patients afflicted with complex, long-term comorbidities—characteristics that make integrative health providers well positioned to treat patients suffering from long COVID. Ms. Kang shared her experience as a provider as well as a patient who is recovering currently from injuries sustained in pedestrian accident. She has seen firsthand how effective integrative health care practices are for treating pain, anxiety, and stress—all of which she saw increase dramatically among her patients during the pandemic.

In addition to sharing their experiences, the speakers suggested several policy recommendations. All three urged Congress to expand coverage of integrative health care practices and to ensure integrative practitioners achieve pay parity, especially for delivering telehealth services, and be reimbursed on par with their colleagues in the field of conventional medicine. Ms. Resnicoff asked that hospitals be given more resources to support staff and “help heal these heroes.” Ms. Kang asked that integrative care providers be given more opportunities to communicate with policymakers to share their experiences and affect policy change. The presenters also asked that policymakers support more research regarding the efficacy of integrative treatments and then use this evidence to adjust, for example, Medicare reimbursement practices.

Ms. Roberts concluded the briefing reflecting on the opportunities that the pandemic presents. The pandemic is not over, and much work remains to be done, especially with respect understanding and managing long COVID. The integrative health community is not only helping with this effort to recover from the pandemic, but also is looking ahead to how it can improve patient care for other conditions and encourage individuals to embrace wellness.
A recording of the full briefing is posted at:  https://tinyurl.com/IHPCCaucusJune2021

National Academy of Medicine (NAM) 3-Day Series (2.5 hours per day)

  The National Academy of Medicine (NAM) recently hosted a series of three virtual workshops, in    partnership with the Health and Medicine Division of the National Research Council, focused on    “Financing that Rewards Better Health and Well-Being.” The series was designed to explore            payment models that facilitate patient-centered care and holistic approaches and discuss how         fee- for-service financing might be transitioned to these models. More specifically, the             National   Academy of Medicine highlighted five objectives:

1. Describe the deficiencies in our current health delivery and financing systems for creating health and sustaining health care delivery in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
2. Identify and describe alternative payment models demonstrating major transformations in health care delivery and financing, address those deficiencies, and summarize their characteristics and designs.
3. Describe how integrated financing approaches can be used to redirect payment for individual services that may be unnecessary or even harmful toward payment for care of the whole person, equitable population health outcomes, improved patient and provider experience, and reduced per capita costs.
4. Evaluate how care models using integrated financing have adapted to the COVID-19 pandemic to create whole person-population health and remain financially viable.
5. Identify practical strategies and financing approaches that effectively reward whole person-population health.

Joining the NAM in sponsoring this series was the Samueli Foundation, represented by Dr. Wayne Jonas, who was recognized by Dr. Michael McGinnis, the Leonard D. Schaeffer Executive Officer and Senior Scholar of the NAM, as a principal proponent of the partnership that led to this series and its follow-up. Other sponsors included the George Family Foundation, Nemours Foundation, the Well Being Trust, and the Whole Health Institute, and included a variety of nationally recognized experts).

Day 1 was filled with respected voices laying out the inconsistencies in the current payment system for healthcare services, and the disconnect between quality indicators and payment systems. Their presentations were riveting with excellent analysis, data and discernment about needed changes to support “health and wellness” promotion.

Day 2 presenters highlighted from experience the social disparities witnessed and evident during the pandemic that already existed but became so clearly apparent with a healthcare system under duress. They shared their models, ones that worked and ones that didn’t to incorporate integrative health care services within the current health reimbursement systems and insurance companies resistance toward changing.

This session, Day 2, included 3 of our own IHPC members, Fasih Hameed, Petaluma Health Center, Margaret Chesney, University of California San Francisco, and David Fogel, CHI Healthcare, Maryland, and they provided a brief description of current barriers, followed by a discussion of successful strategies and core elements of scalable integrated financing approaches that incentivize positive health outcomes for individuals and communities.

Day 3 once again had nationally recognized health experts presenting alternatives to address the lack of incorporation of integrative healthcare providers within insurance reimbursement policies, and mechanisms to address this going forward. The issues of quality, and equity were front and center within these presentations and very profound data was shared.

There is a total of 7.5 hours of presentations, and they are all worth your time, as they present an up-to-date picture that integrative providers find themselves working within, the challenges and opportunities are explored. Changing the financing of healthcare in this country is a daunting undertaking, and these presenters all contribute greatly to a vivid understanding of what is at stake and what can be gained with significant changes to health insurance reimbursement.

IHPC recommends each of our PFH and any other interested parties watch these powerful and insightful presentations, which are highly relevant to our work as integrative providers, patients, and advocates. You can access them here:

Event Materials and Links to Broadcast

Full Agenda:  Workshop-Agenda-5.24-FINAL

Day 1: Envisioning an Integrated Health Care Delivery and Financing System

Day 1 Slides: DAY-1-IPP

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Materials:  RWJF_State-Benchmarking-Models_June-2021_i_FOR-WEB

Day 2: Examining Innovative Models and Levers Underscored during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Day 2 Slides: DAY-2-IPP-FINAL-Slides

Day 3:  Roadmap for Integrated Payment Approaches to Efficiency, Effectiveness, and Equity 

Day 3 Slides: DAY-3-IPP-FINAL

On May 28, President Biden released the remaining details of his Administration’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 proposed budget. The budget proposes $1.5 trillion in discretionary spending, including substantial increases for programs within Department of Health and Human Services, and non-defense discretionary spending overall.

The president’s budget is a first step in the annual appropriations process. Typically introduced in the first two weeks of February, President Biden’s budget was delayed, which is not atypical for a new, incoming Administration. The budget release was further deferred when the new Administration chose to prioritize passage of COVID relief measures in the months following President Biden’s inauguration.

Some highlights from the proposed budget that may be of interest to IHPC members include:

• National Institutes of Health (NIH)—The budget proposes funding the NIH at $52 billion in FY 2022, a $9 billion increase over the agency’s FY 2021 enacted level. The bulk of this increase, $6.5 billion, would be used to establish the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Health (ARPA-H) within the NIH. The Administration has touted the proposed ARPA-H as a public-private accelerator for research on treatments for cancer, Alzheimer’s, and other diseases.

• National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH)—Located within the NIH, the NCCIH would, under the president’s proposal, receive $184.3 million in FY 2022, an increase of $30.2 million or 19.6 percent above the agency’s FY 2021 enacted level. Of this amount, $26 million would be allocated to expand the Center’s research into pain and pain management.

• Health Services and Research Administration (HRSA)—The Biden Administration proposes $12.65 billion for HRSA, which represents a $496.5 million, or 4.1 percent, increase above the FY 2021 enacted level. The Community Health Centers program within HRSA would receive a $50 million increase in discretionary funding over the program’s FY 2021 level. This funding level would support awards for an additional 140 health centers, resulting in the total participation of approximately 440 health centers nationwide.

• Veteran’s Administration (VA)– The total FY 2022 request for the VA is $269.9 billion (with medical care collections), a 10% increase above the agency’s FY 2021 enacted level. The budget flat funds the Whole Health System, proposing $73.6 million (same as the program’s FY 2021 spending level) in FY 2022.

• Other notable trans-agency public health priorities featured in the president’s budget include $220 million to address maternal mortality and $11.2 billion for programs to address the opioid epidemic and substance abuse disorders.

Outlook

The House and Senate Appropriations Committees are currently holding hearings and moving towards consideration or “mark up” of the 12 Fiscal Year 2022 appropriations bills. While President Biden’s budget proposal is referenced as part of these deliberations, Congress never accepts the President’s budget in its entirety. The House Appropriations Committees will consider all 12 spending bills before mid-July with the goal of bringing them to the full House before the second week of August. The Senate Appropriations Committee, although holding hearings, has not released a mark up schedule nor indicated when it plans to bring its FY 2022 appropriations bills to the Senate floor.

Fiscal Year 2022 begins on October 1, 2021, leaving little time for the House and Senate to pass and then reconcile differences in their respective appropriations bills. This scenario increases the likelihood that Congress and the Administration will have to enact a “continuing resolution (CR)” or a series of CRs, to fund federal agencies at last year’s level and keep the federal government operational when the new fiscal year begins. IHPC will continue to monitor and report on developments related to the FY 2022 appropriations process.

Greater public awareness, acceptance and desire for integrative therapies are prompting a growing need for interdisciplinary education for health professionals.  To address this accelerating challenge, the Institute for Natural Medicine (INM), a non-profit 501-(c)(3)working to educate the public about and increase access to naturopathic medicine, is recruiting medical doctors (MD) and doctors of osteopathy (DO ) to serve on a multi-modality advisory board that will address ways to collaborate across disciplines. The board’s mission will be to help support integration of naturopathic medicine into university education and teaching centers, primary care and community health settings, as well as clinics and hospitals.

The concept for the board was first initiated by Leonard A. Wisneski, MD, FACP, faculty of Georgetown University, George Washington University, and University of Colorado; Chair Emeritus of the Integrative Health Policy Consortium and author of Scientific Basis of Integrative Health. “Primary care should be focused on whole-person medicine,” said Dr. Wisneski. “Naturopathic doctors are educated as specialists in lifestyle and behavioral medicine, which hones in on healthy habits that support prevention of chronic diseases. And as such, they should be more readily integrated into primary care settings. This board will help facilitate that process.”

Naturopathic physicians understand the bigger context as experts in whole-person health, added Michelle Simon, Ph.D., ND, president and CEO of INM. “ND’s have a lot to share with the conventional healthcare community. And we would like to find the best way to integrate not only our doctors but our philosophy of practice into these settings.”
Dr. Simon believes that creating allies within the medical community to share information and to guide the integration is the most effective way to do this. “We can tout our own goods and trumpet our own horn, but it’s not as effective unless you have folks speaking peer-to-peer in those networks, who can really understand who we are and advocate for us.”
The effort is particularly important at this post-COVID time, Simon noted. “Health in America is front-of-mind for everyone. We’d like to leverage that opportunity and that interest and start to create pilot programs that really bring bigger ideas to fruition. The time for small ideas is past. We can’t incrementally change what we’re doing. We have to have a different approach. I believe naturopathic medicine could play a role in that and should serve or at least be at table in thinking about those big ideas. We would like to have representation in academic centers, integrative medicine settings, community health and be on the front lines of changing health for those who need it the most in underserved communities.”

The board will also help dispel myths and misconceptions about naturopathic medicine, which can be common, noted Kimberly Lord Stewart, marketing and content director for INM. The board, she added, “will also help overcome some of the problems inherent to the profession and because state licensing and regulation isn’t what we’d like it to be.”
A complementary approach

Naturopathic doctors are uniquely trained to fill some of the current gaps in our healthcare system and can address many pressing health issues. Some of these areas of specialty include using whole-person health care to support treatment of acute illness and the behavioral aspects of chronic disease, the lingering physiological, biological and neurological effects of the pandemic, non-pharmaceutical pain management, chronic disease prevention in community health centers, primary care practices, and teaching hospitals, and the growing shortage of primary care physicians, particularly in rural and low-income areas.

In medical school, doctors are still taught to focus on pathology, pathophysiology, and conventional treatments like drugs, radiation and surgery, Wisneski said. “They are just starting in some schools to look at lifestyle factors but not to a great degree overall.”

“Naturopaths are trained from the start in a whole-person approach,” Wisneski continued. “NDs need to be placed in the system in areas where these approaches are important,” he added. “They should be teachers in hospital systems and multi-practice groups to teach physicians on lifestyle, behavioral counseling, natural therapies and how to deal with a patient’s emotional concerns at this incredibly important time post-COVID.”

“Among the challenges the board will face is to determine where best to put its initial energy and outreach,” Simon noted. The group will also work to facilitate better communication between practitioners. Dr. Wisneski has worked with naturopathic physicians for years in different settings, and he believes there needs to be more education for them in what he called ‘med speak’: communicating with MDs/DOs in a way that they can better understand some of the therapies and semantics that naturopathic doctors use.

To that end, INM recently conducted a survey of 60 naturopathic physicians who have worked in conventional settings with MDs. From these responses, they are gathering input on determining the best practices for facilitating good communication. INM is also creating a board of naturopathic physicians who have worked in conventional settings to help catalyze the process.
From the survey, the board and its mission are generating strong interest, according to Simon. “I think it is a movement in our profession whose time has come,” she said. “There have been people who have talked about this, but now there is something that they can plug into. People are wanting to join and help out. So, that is exciting for me.”

Members of the board will participate in a series of tele/web conversations with Drs. Wisneski and Simon, which are targeted to begin later in June. Anyone interested in participating in the ND board should contact Dr. Michelle Simon at INM (michelle@naturemed.org) or in the MD/DO board should contact Dr. Len Wiseneski (lwisneski@ihpc.org).

By Mary Jo Hoeksema

With the arrival of the Biden Administration and 117^th Congress, the Integrative Health Policy Consortium (IHPC) has been presented with new opportunities to engage with policymakers in the Federal government and on Capitol Hill.

The work began in December 2020, when IHPC Co-Chair Dr. Margaret Erickson sent President Biden’s transition team a letter  expressing some of IHPC’s primary policy priorities. Among other things, the letter urged the new Administration to prioritize implementation of recommendations stipulated in the Pain Management Best Practices Inter-Agency Task Force Report of 2019.  In addition, the letter asked the new Administration to expand the delivery of integrative health services through Federally Qualified Health Centers, and to extend Medicare and Medicaid coverage of integrative health services. The letter was well received by the transition team and led to requests for additional information. IHPC hopes this communication portends a productive dialogue with members of the new Biden Administration.

Upon confirmation of their respective positions, IHPC also sent letters to the new Secretary of Veterans Affairs Denis McDonough and Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra. The letters congratulated these officials and informed them of what IHPC is and what IHPC’s priorities are with respect to each of their departments’ portfolios.

On Capitol Hill, IHPC resumed its work with the co-chairs of the Integrative Health and Wellness Caucus, Congresswoman Judy Chu (D-CA) and Congresswoman Jackie Walorski (R-IN), to reinstate and expand the caucus.  Further, IHPC worked with the Caucus co-chairs and Congressman Tim Ryan (D-OH), a major proponent of integrative health and senior member of the House Appropriations Committee, to communicate the consortium’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 funding and policy priorities. Ideally, our efforts will lead to the inclusion of language in several FY 2022 appropriations reports expressing support for the Whole Health System in the Department of Veterans Affairs and the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health at the National Institutes of Health. IHPC also collaborated with other partner organizations on appropriations report language that could advance the consortium’s interests regarding pain management. The outcome of these initiatives will not be known, however, until Congress considers its versions of the FY 2022 appropriations bills in the late spring or early summer. IHPC will share information about these bills as they proceed through the legislative process.

IHPC is also monitoring numerous legislative proposals addressing topics such as COVID relief and social determinants of health. 2021 promises to be a busy year on Capitol Hill for IHPC!

###

On December 15, 2020, IHPCs Co-Chair Margaret Erickson, PhD, RN, CNS, APRN, APHN-BD sent a letter on behalf of the organization to President Elect Biden to congratulate him on his victory as well as to provide background information that would be useful for the Transition Team.

You may read the letter here Biden Transition Letter from IHPC 121520

On April 6, IHPC Co-Chair Margaret E. Erickson PhD, RN, CNS, APRN, APHN-BC on behalf of the IHPC members sent a letter to the New Secretary of Health and Human Services, the Honorable Xavier Becerra. 

The letter stated, “On behalf of the Integrative Health Policy Consortium (IHPC), we are writing to congratulate you on your recent confirmation to serve as the next Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). IHPC is a broad-based coalition of organizations whose mission is to eliminate barriers to health. IHPC includes 26 organizations representing more than 650,000 state licensed, certified and/or nationally certified healthcare professionals, including medical doctors, registered nurses, doctors of chiropractic, naturopathic doctors, licensed acupuncturists, licensed massage therapists, and academic, research, clinical, and public education organizations.”

And went on provide, “In recent years, the consortium has worked closely with HHS to develop and promote recommendations issued by the non-partisan Pain Management Best Practices Inter-Agency Task Force Report of 2019. This report, which was led by the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health (OASH), highlighted pain as a leading health challenge to the nation and its direct impact on the opioid crisis. In addition, the report documented considerable evidence regarding health disparities in racial and ethnic minority populations in the prevalence and treatment of pain-related conditions that are attributed to factors of our current health systems. We look forward to working with you and your staff to resume efforts regarding implementation of the report’s recommendations.”

And provided  statement on priorities, “In addition, IHPC anticipates working with your Administration to address priorities, which we communicated to the Biden-Harris HHS agency review team in the attached letter. These priorities include expanding the delivery of integrative health services through Federally Qualified Health Centers, and expanding Medicare and Medicaid coverage of services. This may be accomplished by expanding the coverage of Section 2706 of the Public Health Service Act to include all public (federal) health programs. This provision, entitled, Nondiscrimination in Health Care,” which became law through the Affordable Care Act, is vitally important.”

The submitted letter may be viewed here:  IHPC welcomes HHS Sec_4_6_2021

Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC’s) are a nationwide network of federal, state, and privately-funded community health centers that historically serve more than 28 million people, both uninsured or underinsured, providing essential health services at little to no cost to the patient.  Now, with the COVID epidemic and the increase in people who have lost their jobs, the number of people served has surged to over 36 million.  Before adding the numbers associated with the epidemic, FQHCs offered care for one in 12 people in the country, one in 9 of which are children, and 400,000 of which are veterans.  There are approximately 12,000 of these community health centers across the U.S., all of which receive funding from the Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA), within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

FQHC’s have long addressed the economic and social drivers that are essential components of a comprehensive approach to population health. These issues are gaining bipartisan support under the umbrella of the Social Determinants of Health (SDOH). In 2019, Senator Todd Young (R-IN) introduced the Social Determinants Accelerator Act, a bill designed to facilitate state Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) funded grants for programs targeting high need Medicaid recipients using innovative Social Determinants Accelerator Plans.

The IHPC supports funding for FQHCs as fundamental to its mission to eliminate barriers to health.  Additionally, since FQHCs often benefit from more programing flexibility than other federally funded programs, they are a growing source of innovative and integrative models of care.  An exceptional example of an FQHC that is providing integrative care is the Petaluma Health Center, in Northern California, directed by Fasih Hameed, MD.  In addition to providing a full range of integrative services, this clinic is embedded in the community, with innovative features including providing care in the schools, a community garden and teaching kitchen.  Another outstanding example is the People’s Community Clinic, a federally qualified health clinic (FQHC) in Central Texas.  IHPC’s former chair, Sharad Kohli, MD, recently wrote an article about how this Texas FQHC developed an integrative model for patients with pain.
Read Dr. Kohli’s article here

Dr. Gerald Clum, DC, Director of the Center for Compassion, Integrity and Secular Ethics at Life University made a generous gift to the Board of Directors of the Integrative Health Policy Consortium–a 10-week Compassionate Integrity Training program for IHPC Partners For Health.

The Center for Compassion, Integrity, and Secular Ethics (CCISE) at Life University is dedicated to developing and promoting empirically-based programs that foster the human values most conducive to individual, social and environmental flourishing through research, dialogue, education and community empowerment.

Compassionate Integrity Training (CIT) is a multi-part training program that cultivates basic human values as skills for the purpose of increasing individual, social, and environmental flourishing. By covering a range of skills from self-regulation and self-compassion to compassion for others and engagement with complex systems, CIT focuses on and builds toward compassionate integrity. Values and concepts like compassion and integrity are based on a secular approach to universal ethics based on common sense, common experience, and science.

Compassion has been recognized as crucial to quality health care provision. Dr. Beth A. Lowen, MD, Assoc. Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Chief Medical Officer at the Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare, says, “Perhaps heightened public and professional awareness of the value and importance of compassion will enable us to raise our voices together to insist that compassion is a necessity, not a luxury, in health care.”

Additionally, former U.S. Senator William H. Frist, MD, and heart transplant surgeon recognized data from the groundbreaking book, Compassionomics by Stephen Trzeciak and Anthony Mazzarelli, demonstrating how compassionate care achieves measurable improvement to patient outcomes, fiscal health, and employee satisfaction. Thus, compassion drives revenue and cuts costs. This is key to driving legislation that is good for all.

U.S. Senator Cory A. Booker, in the forward to Compassionomics said that the authors “focus on the healthcare system to show us tangible and significant ways that compassion makes a crucial difference in health care. They show us that compassion isn’t just a nice idea, it’s a practice that when put into action improves lives.”

The 10-week CIT Training for the IHPC Partners For Health will promote expanded awareness and deeper understanding of the concepts that can be employed in policy work to keep us grounded in a basic orientation toward kindness, care, and compassion. Participants will be supported in developing deeper appreciation for the inherent value and innate potential as interconnected in common humanity. Practicing discernment and critical thinking while incorporating basic human values into decisions will lend to more humane and inclusive policy making.

IHPC is deeply grateful for the kind offer and support from Dr. Clum and Life University and is eager to leverage this important interpersonal training towards its continued work to address equity, diversity, and inclusion within the integrative health community.

“This project may not bear fruit for another 40 or 50 years, and you and I won’t be here to see it. But our generation must make a start…more sensible humanity may emerge, whose leadership too will be different.” H.H. the Dalai Lama

CIT (Compassionate Integrity Training) STARTS NEXT WEEK –SPOTS ARE STILL AVAILABLE FOR IHPC PFH OR THEIR MEMBERS!

• There are still slots available for additional participants!  Please let Tracy know if you are interested or someone in your organization and she will connect you with the CIT team.
• If you signed up but have not yet registered – please look for email from
  • Kristin Norton —kristin@kristinzo.com
  • Please register as soon as possible!

A Case in Point by Nancy Gahles, DC, CCH, OIM

“The first Law of Understanding is that in general the same hopes, sorrows, joys,
troubles, fears, encompass us all. The same Destiny beckons us. The same Love
enfolds us. The same Justice educates us. “ ~George S. Arundale, Understanding is
Happiness.

A well-known axiom often used when describing policy work is that it is like “sausage
making,” a rather gruesome process. But policymaking is also relationship making.
Because the American Society of Acupuncturists (ASA) and the American Academy of
Medical Acupuncturists (AAMA), both IHPC Partners for Health, share the common
goals of supporting acupuncture as a part of the larger medical system, the two groups–
together with the IHPC–began a series of conversations this fall to see how they might
more formally work together.

Indeed, an overarching concern for appreciating the common humanity of us all and
working together to build relationships that make the world a better place was echoed
by both leaders of the acupuncture organizations. Olivia Hsu Friedman, DACM, LAc,
Chair, ASA, stated that “common mutuality arose from just talking, identifying objectives
and obstacles”. Freda L. Dreher, MD, FAAMA, President, AAMA, said that “it’s so easy
with Hsu Friedman; we were automatically in synch.” The discussions led to good faith
intentions for the two groups to work together and to a more formal Memorandum of
Understanding (MOU).

A memorandum of understanding is a formal agreement between two or more parties
that can be used to establish official relationships. MOU’s are not legally binding, but
they carry a degree of seriousness and mutual respect, stronger than an informal verbal
agreement or a “handshake.”

Both agreed that the timing was right for understanding and collaboration for the greater
good. Dreher explained that the MOU is a launching step: one that “takes us from a
place of good understanding to a formalized understanding.” She continued “We don’t
have to BE each other to respect each other.” Hsu Friedman commented, “As a whole,
the health care industry has to recognize that we all offer different things for the good of
the whole world.” Dreher enthusiastically explained that the AAMA will be making their
upcoming April symposium more international and inclusive: “to be together, convene,
allow ideas to bubble up…”

IHPC is proud of all that these two Partners for Health have achieved thus far and looks
forward to similar models of collaboration for advancement of integrative healthcare and
healthcare policy. The AAMA and ASA are proof that relationship building comes from
mutual respect and understanding and leads to advancement of the profession as a
whole.

Q&A with Executive Director Dale West

In an effort to create a more collaborative landscape for all members of the healthcare community, the Academic Consortium for Integrative Medicine & Health, a New Buffalo, MI-based organization comprised of universities and health systems in North America, announced in October it would open its membership to nursing schools and osteopathic medical schools. The Consortium, founded in 1999 by eight academic health centers including Duke University, Harvard University, University of California, San Francisco, University of Arizona, University of Maryland, University of Massachusetts and University of Minnesota, now includes 75 institutional members representing scientists, educators, clinicians and other health professionals who share an interest in integrative medicine and health. Because these professions have traditionally remained somewhat compartmentalized, the move is an important step to help bridge the gap. IHPC recently spoke with Executive Director Dale West about the Consortium’s decision and its potential impact on the integrative and overall health community.

IHPC: Why did the Academic Consortium make the decision to expand its membership and why is this important to the integrative health community?

Dale West:  It really was the next step in the evolution of creating a more inter-professional organization. Nurses and doctors of osteopathy have actually been involved the organization for years. They are part of our current membership through the existing members but our bylaws prohibited the schools from being part of the consortium, so we made the decision to make this change as we believe it will take all of us to make the changes we want to see in our health system. We need to widen the tent.

IHPC: What kinds of changes to the health system are you talking about?

DW: Our vision is to see a transformed health system where integrative medicine and health are available to everyone. I know that is a lofty goal and what we are working toward will take all of the integrative organizations and all of the professional groups working together to get increased access to modalities that help save and improve lives.

The thinking is that having more inclusion from different institutions and sharing of resources, in terms of how we are educating our students to include an integrated integrative approach, is important. We have to be able to educate our new medical students and nursing students in a different way to help people live a healthy, fulfilling life– that is our number one goal.

Frankly, trying to make changes in health care without our nurses is never going to happen. They spend more time with patients than anyone else and are an integral part of the system. They have really been focused on integrative health as long as the rest of us, so it made perfect sense that they should be an integral part of the organization.

Doctors of Osteopathy also bring a strong background and understanding of integrative modalities. Their training comes from a more holistic approach in that that they can do spinal manipulation to alleviate pain to help people live a more fulfilling life. So they are already taught this in school, and there is no difference in scope of practice from an MD to a DO. It is an artificial barrier whose times had come.

IHPC: So far what response have you had to this change?

DW: We had had requests coming in from these groups– in fact, it was a request from a faculty member who had a new institute that wasn’t eligible to join.  That alone showed us there was interest.  We have also seen interest from other nursing and DO schools. We will likely see the first application from a nursing school in early 2021. COVID might dampen this somewhat because the focus is elsewhere. But we think it was the right move and the response we have seen so far is good. People are excited and open to coming into a larger tent.

IHPC: Was it a difficult process to shift the organization’s thinking to include these new institutions?

DW: The changes we made this year were unanimous. We made a push to make this happen and everyone involved, who voted to make a change–the board, the membership committee, and others, were unanimous, so it was not difficult to make it happen. It is something we have been thinking about.  We have had conversations over the years, but for many years we had a different focus – the organization was young still and trying to get its footing. We are in a different place now, and we thought this was the right time.

IHPC: What will membership in the consortium mean for these schools?

DW:  It means that they have a larger network to be able to talk to colleagues across the country and around the world about education curriculum, clinical practice, and research. Having a collaborative effort to share resources opens the possibilities for these schools to have a greater network as they work to create change locally and also nationally

IHPC: Looking ahead, how do you envision the impact of this inclusion?

DW: Increasing the number of institutes providing both the education to our emerging leaders in healthcare and providing care to people around the country will allow for this great collaboration– more collaborative research projects and really looking at systems for change that are working. We do have pockets of change that are moving the needle. So as we begin to be able to share these ideas, strategies, and outcomes and bring that back locally is incredibly important.  Increasing the types of organizations that can join will expand this collaboration.

Dr. Helene Langevin, Director

NIH’s National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health

on

Research for Integrative and Whole Person Health

Speaker - Helene Langevin, M.D., was sworn in as director of the NIH’s National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) on November 26, 2018. Prior to her arrival, she worked at the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, jointly based at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston. Dr. Langevin served as director of the Osher Center and professor-in-residence of medicine at Harvard Medical School since 2012. She has also served as a visiting professor of neurological sciences at the University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine, Burlington.

 

As NCCIH director, Dr. Langevin oversees the Federal government’s lead agency for scientific research on the diverse medical and health care systems, practices, and products that are not generally considered part of conventional medicine. With an annual budget of approximately $142 million, NCCIH funds and conducts research to help answer important scientific and public health questions about natural products, mind and body practices, and pain management.

 

As the principal investigator of several NIH-funded studies, Dr. Langevin’s research interests have centered around the role of connective tissue in chronic musculoskeletal pain and the mechanisms of acupuncture, manual, and movement-based therapies. Her more recent work has focused on the effects of stretching on inflammation resolution mechanisms within connective tissue. She has authored more than 70 original scientific papers and is a fellow of the American College of Physicians.

 

Dr. Langevin received an M.D. degree from McGill University, Montreal. She completed a postdoctoral research fellowship in neurochemistry at the MRC Neurochemical Pharmacology Unit in Cambridge, England, and a residency in internal medicine and fellowship in endocrinology and metabolism at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.

 

Moderator – Margaret Chesney, PhD is Professor of Medicine at UCSF, and served as director of the UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicine from 2010 to 2015. Prior to returning to UCSF, where she had previously worked as professor-in-residence and co-director of the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies, she was the first Deputy Director of NCCIH from 2003 to 2008, and associate director of the Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Maryland.

 

With a focus on health promotion and disease prevention, she has served as principal investigator of NIH-funded research studies identifying pathways by which behavioral factors, such as stress, are associated with chronic disease, and testing biopsychosocial interventions to promote health. She has explored the role that individuals and communities can play in the promotion of health and maintenance of optimal well-being across the lifespan, even in the face of serious illness such as cancer and HIV/AIDS. Her current research efforts are particularly focused on the health challenges faced by women, seniors, Veterans and the underserved.

 

Dr. Chesney has served as president of the Society for Health Psychology, Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research and American Psychosomatic Society. From 2014 to 2016, she chaired of the Academic Consortium for Integrative Medicine and Health.

 

 Thank You to Our Sponsors

Byline: Laura Culberson Farr, Executive Director, American Association of Naturopathic Physicians

 Since the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic began in March, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration along with the Federal Trade Commission have sent over 300 warning letters to physicians, clinics, individuals, pharmacists, and manufacturing and retail companies reprimanding them for making false and misleading claims about the ability of products or services to prevent, mitigate, treat, or cure COVID-19. Dozens of these warning letters have gone to practitioners in the integrative healthcare space, including functional medicine physicians, naturopathic physicians, chiropractic doctors, and acupuncturists, many of whom often recommend natural approaches to care through diet and lifestyle changes, and the use of herbs and/or supplements.

The American Association of Naturopathic Physicians conducted an analysis of the warning letters and providers who received them, and found that many of the offending communications were discussions about ways to “boost the immune system,” methods for how to stay healthy, and natural protocols that may be helpful in mitigating COVID-19 symptoms or that have been successfully deployed to treat other acute respiratory distress syndromes. Most of the warning letter recipients sell products through their clinic or online dispensary or advertise services like intravenous (IV) Vitamin C therapy.

The warning letters usually begin by citing language from a clinic’s website or newsletter that regulators determine makes a misleading claim, requesting that the offending language be removed and that the FTC be notified within 48 hours that the recipient has come into compliance.

However, there can be a cascade of downstream consequences from receiving one of these warning letters. Some integrative medicine providers have reported one or several of the following:

• Negative media about the practitioner or their clinic
• Merchant service accounts frozen upon a bank learning of the warning letter, and can only be reactivated after establishing proof of compliance
• Fraud investigations by the Oregon Department of Justice for violations of the Oregon Unlawful Trade Practices Act
• Reports from recipients that their state licensing board was notified

While there are no known cases of disciplinary action by licensing boards on any practitioner, the risk is possible and the anxiety and legal defense fees are even more real for providers who genuinely thought they were sharing important information about potentially beneficial, low-cost, low-risk ways to stay healthy or mitigate COVID-19 symptoms.

Providers at the Crossroads of Commercial and Free Speech

Warning letters are triggered when the FTC perceives that there is advertising or marketing language that violates the FTC Act. For integrative medicine providers, the AANP’s research found that this is almost always the nexus of discussing treatment protocols, services, or research related to COVID-19 with either a direct or implied marketing reference to selling products through a clinic store, online dispensary, or services such as IV therapy. This is considered “commercial speech,” and is highly regulated.

In the middle of this crossroads stands the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA), which strictly prohibits supplement producers and marketers from making disease-related claims. A disease-related claim, such as stating a product can be used to treat COVID-19, can only be legally made for FDA-approved drugs and medical devices.

Supplement manufacturers and marketers are limited to making what are called structure and function claims and must include a disclaimer that the statements have not been evaluated by the FDA.

Here is a simple example of the difference between a structure/function claim and a disease claim. “Calcium can help build strong bones” is a structure/function claim. “Calcium can help treat osteoporosis” is a disease claim.

Under DSHEA, marketing a product associated with a disease like COVID-19, whether directly, as in “buy my vitamin C to boost your immune system to protect you from COVID-19,” or indirectly, as in “vitamin D deficiency may increase the risk of contracting COVID-19,” is considered making a false and misleading disease claim that a supplement can prevent, cure, mitigate, or treat COVID-19.

Providers who sell products and advertise the availability of products in newsletters, websites or social media are generally viewed by regulators as marketers, but have not usually been the target of FDA and FTC regulatory actions. The combination of heightened consumer fear with the explosion of consumer scams, has led to a regulatory environment that supplement industry consultant Michael Levin has called “a radioactive recipe waiting to explode.”

Synonyms, Euphemisms and Syllogisms of COVID-19

What has been particularly confounding for many integrative medicine providers trying to communicate legitimate educational content, research, protocols, tips, and recommendations to patients and the public is the ever-growing list of synonyms and euphemisms that regulators are associating with COVID-19, and asserting that they are syllogisms to making a disease claim to prevent, treat, or cure COVID-19. For example, the term “virus” is often associated with a disease, therefore a statement that a dietary ingredient has shown promise to treat or prevent “viruses” would likely be considered a false and misleading disease claim, and may trigger a warning letter specific to COVID-19.

The legal team of a popular supplement company used by many integrative medicine practitioners has cautioned their marketing team to also avoid using phrases like “during this pandemic,” or “in this new normal,” which may be considered euphemisms for COVID-19 when viewed through a marketing lens. A statement along the lines of, “during this pandemic, we need to make sure our immune systems are strong,” that then recommends a sample protocol to boost immune resilience would be viewed by the FTC as an inference to COVID-19 and a prohibited disease claim.

In a recent call with the FTC task force charged with protecting the public against COVID-19 scams, the Assistant Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection remarked “there is a syllogism between immunity and COVID-19 that is not definitively supported by scientific evidence.” He explained that if there is a communication about the pandemic, immunity, and dietary ingredients that links to a store selling related products, the FTC will view this as marketing and a false and misleading disease claim about the products.

The proliferation of fraudulent COVID-19 cures is a real and significant problem, as is the potential for restricting open communication about potentially beneficial, natural approaches to improve health. Some natural health advocacy organizations have argued that the regulators have gone too far and are stifling the ability of providers to communicate appropriate information about natural approaches to preventing or treating COVID-19.

“Your right to learn from your doctor about natural methods of staying healthy during the pandemic are under threat,” said the Alliance for Natural Health in a May statement. “The FDA, FTC, Department of Justice, and some state attorneys general have launched a coordinated censorship campaign that prevents medical doctors and other healthcare providers from communicating their extensive knowledge about how to stay healthy…using natural medicine.”

This front is also evolving rapidly, research is changing constantly, and some providers and clinics who have received warning letters are pushing back to defend the ability to educate consumers and market dietary supplements. Ongoing dialogue needs to happen with regulatory bodies to fine-tune the line between what constitutes free speech, which is not regulated, and commercial speech, which is heavily regulated.

Providers must quickly become educated about marketing laws, DSHEA, what constitutes commercial speech, and the domains that have long been the purview of the supplement industry but are now broadly being applied to providers who have become de facto marketers.

Additionally, providers also need to understand the line between free speech and commercial speech. Author Erik Goldman provides an example in his article Words of Warning: “Saying ‘Vitamin D boosts immunity’ on your website is free speech. Saying “Vitamin D boosts immunity and you can buy it at my store” is marketing. Regulators are unlikely to object to the first statement. They very well could target the second.”

To ensure compliance with marketing regulations, practitioners are urged to analyze their marketing communications with the following considerations:

1. Educate the public about COVID-19 treatment approaches without any marketing for product sales on websites, newsletters, social media posts, etc; OR
2. Market dietary supplements/products without making prevention or treatment claims, including but not limited to COVID-19, antiviral, or other disease properties;
3. Do not make claims about COVID-19 treatment approaches with product sales or a link to an online dispensary in either a direct or implied manner;
4. Get to know laws around marketing, the FTC Act and DSHEA, and the important distinction between commercial and free speech. The AANP co-hosted a FREE webinar with Holistic Primary Care, with guests from the FTC department issuing warning letters, and several legal and practitioner experts. Please click here to watch and share Your COVID Communications Could Be Illegal: How to Avoid FTC/FDA Trouble When Marketing Your Practice.

Integrative medicine practitioners play an important role in helping consumers understand what are credible, evidence-informed natural approaches to health. Developing a deeper understanding of marketing laws and commercial speech regulations will help providers accomplish this effectively and legally.

About the Author

Laura Culberson Farr

Laura Culberson Farr is the Executive Director of the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians, the national association representing licensed naturopathic doctors, and Board of Director of the Integrative Health Policy Consortium. A health advocate for over 25 years, she has a deep knowledge of the complexities of healthcare reform, and is an expert on how naturopathic and integrative medicine doctors, conventional clinics, and insurers can work together to improve patient care and reduce healthcare costs.

Nursing may be one of the most trusted professions around, but Margaret Erickson believes it needs to be elevated and respected at a new level. Nurses and the care they provide are foundational to the healthcare system and play a prominent role in today’s pandemic crisis. Yet nursing care is usually included in hospital budgets, shockingly, as “lodging expenses.”  Erickson is uniquely qualified to discuss current and future nursing care, having practiced holistic nursing for more than 40 years and holding her PhD, RN, CNS and APHN-BC®.  Since 2000, she has been working to educate and advance the role of nurses as CEO of the American Holistic Nurses Credentialing Corporation (AHNCC).

In this interview, Erickson offers her thoughts on how holistic nursing goes beyond today’s typical nursing tasks and the role it plays in today’s shifting healthcare paradigm, on the importance of self-care for patients and practitioners, and on the mission of AHNCC.  Erickson, as the newly-elected Co-Chair of the IHPC Board of Directors, discusses her expanding role with IHPC.

IHPC: Tell me about the philosophy behind holistic nursing and how it is different from traditional nursing?

Margaret Erickson: Holistic nursing is grounded in the roots of nursing and a philosophy of holism. Holistic nurses believe that people are spirit-mind-body-emotion integrated beings, that all people are greater than the sum of the parts, and that our subsystems are constantly interacting and affecting one another.  People cannot be separated from their environments. Nursing is not something we do as tasks or based on  the policy and procedure manual but rather, it is how you show up, interact, connect with the person; and help them access resources so they can be healthy and have a higher state of wellbeing, even if they are taking their last breath. Holistic nurses are always competent in the tasks and care for the physical needs of the person but that does not define their practice.

If we go back to Florence Nightingale in the 1800s, nursing was about caring for the whole person. Florence recognized the importance of meeting patients’ basic, trust, and safety needs as well as higher needs such as growth, spiritual, and needs for beauty and nature. Care was holistically focused.  She recognized that people have an innate ability within to heal and that as nurses our goal was to facilitate them in that healing process. However, in the 1970s, nurses aligned with the bio-medical paradigm to validate themselves rather than seeing they had their own discipline, a unique perspective and something special to offer. The focus of nursing care within this paradigm is treating and curing–when possible–illness and disease and is task oriented. Again, Holistic Nursing isn’t about doing tasks. However, we do have to be competent in any work or tasks we do. You can’t try to start an IV on someone several times or the patient will be very stressed, their blood pressure and respiratory rate will be elevated, which in turn affects their immune system and ability to heal. How we approach and complete our work–whether it is as an advocate, educator, or with hands on care at the bedside–affects the entire person and their ability to heal and achieve a greater state of well-being. So, you have to be competent in tasks but again that is not what defines nursing. We believe the most important instrument of healing is ourselves. It is not about us telling patients—I call them clients– what they need to do. It is about understanding who they are and facilitating and supporting them in accessing their resources to help them have the highest quality of life they can achieve.

IHPC: How do you use these philosophies in dealing with patients?

ME: The newest research shows that we make an impression in the first 7-10 seconds when we interact with others. When I walk in a room, am present, recognizing that I am in sacred space with another, I might say ‘Mr. Jones I am here to take care of you’– I speak slowly, and quietly respecting his space. My focus is on the person not the equipment, medicine, documentation, etc.  In this first interaction with the client I tell him, he is important to me.

On the other hand, if I hurry into the room and do tasks like checking the IV, foley, or charts it shows that that is what is most important. The patient is then less likely to feel safe and trust you. Consequently, they often don’t share the important information you need to help them get well. When they don’t trust you, they won’t tell you the real story, what their needs are, and what brought them into the hospital or healthcare system. When we focus on tasks and decide what peoples’ needs are, we have a problem. No one knows someone better than they know themselves. Yet, we decide what their problem is, develop a plan of care in which they are not engaged and then we call them non-compliant. This contributes to treating the symptom rather than the root of the problem and then we have clients having multiple admissions for the same problems.

IHPC: Can you give me some examples of how this might have an impact on patient care and treatment?

ME: In most programs, we currently teach nurses to focus on the presenting symptoms, but that is only part of their care. For example, as a Case Manager in South Dakota, I had a patient admitted with severe respiratory distress. He was medicated and put on oxygen. The physician wanted to intubate him. He demanded that they call me. He told me between gasps that a blizzard was coming and his dog, who was the only person in the world who loved him, kept his home safe from others, would die if left out in cold. He refused to be intubated until I got back from taking care of the dog. I told him I would check on the dog and make sure he was safe. I asked him if while I was taking care of his dog if he could try to slow down his breathing and let the medications he had received begin to work.  I spent a couple of minutes with him, talking quietly, and working with him so he could breathe easier and deeper. I told him I would be back shortly after taking care of his major support system (his dog). I contacted a neighbor and asked him if he would go over and care for the dog. When I got back, and told him his dog was inside, he was better and we didn’t need for him to be intubated. He was so anxious about the dog that it was making his symptoms worse. Some people would have said don’t worry about the dog, you must get intubated first. As holistic nurses we try to listen, understand, and then address a person’s needs as we know that their emotional, spiritual, social, cognitive subsystems all affect their physical wellbeing. People cannot be separated into parts. So, in a biomedical paradigm, nursing and medicine focus on physical health, the body; treating illness and disease. The difference in holistic nursing is we recognize that people are unified beings; we can’t separate them into pieces or systems.

Listening to people is very important. It is essential if we want to understand what is really going on and be able to treat the root of problems versus the presenting symptoms.

I had a gentleman who was a revolving-door patient coming in and out of the hospital, nothing was working for him. His angina was getting worse, and he was identified as a financial problem for the hospital as well as an “impending cardiac event.” I was asked to see him as “he is spending too much time in our hospital and he is getting worse, not better.” I entered his room quietly and respectfully, focusing on his face and eyes.  I didn’t say anything about his admitting symptoms, but rather introduced myself, and asked why he came in?  He told me to check with doctor, and I responded, ‘I don’t care what the doctor or anyone else says or what the records say, I want to know why you think you are here? No one knows you as well as you know yourself.’ His. eyes filled up with tears and he told me his wife of 60 years had died six months ago and that he was broken hearted. He shared that he was a rancher, who lived a long way from town, that he had COPD after decades of dust and exposure to his environment from working outside. Although he had COPD he had managed as his wife had taken care of him, and they had had each other.  He was dealing with unresolved loss, and it was affecting his physical, emotional, and social well-being. I asked him how I could help and what he needed. Then I listened. He said he missed his wife terribly and was very lonely. He needed to be with other people, to talk to someone about his wife, and to have help with his activities of daily living. I worked with him, made some referrals, and he moved into town to assisted living. His chest pains went away, and he no longer needed his medication.

Understanding peoples’ life experiences is another important factor. As a case manager I was asked to follow up with an elderly gentleman who lived on the Pine Ridge Sioux Reservation. I was told I needed to talk to him after the nurse educator (NE) provided his ‘diabetic teaching’ and before he was discharged. I was asked to see him because he was diabetic and non-compliant with his medication and diet. He and his niece came to get instructions before going home. Due to his poor vision and hearing, the niece, as his caregiver, was watching and listening close to the nurse educator. He was very respectful and trying to listen but watching him I was reminded of Snoopy in the Peanuts cartoon, where all he would hear was “blah, blah, blah.” It looked like the ‘education’ was going right over his head.

After the session I asked him if he had any questions. He quietly responded, ‘no,’ at which point I gently said, ‘I noticed when she talked about eating fresh fruit and vegetables that you might have a question.’ He said ‘well yes, I guess I do. I was thinking that fresh fruit and vegetables only come to the reservation once a month. If I am not there, I don’t get any, so what am I supposed to eat?’  Then he asked ‘Did you say insulin must be kept cold?  I don’t have electricity for a refrigerator.’ His healthcare providers had never heard about his real-life experience. For the last 20 years the system had treated him based on their perceptions and assumptions, never understanding his needs or his lived reality. I was really upset. He’d been identified as non-compliant for the last 20 years when in reality the system was neglectful and let him down. Now he was nearly blind and had chronic renal failure. It was outrageous!’

IHPC: Sounds like this comes down to education and training of nurses?

ME:  That’s right. The focus and philosophy that guides nursing education and the curriculum taught determines what the nurse focuses on in their practice. Is the focus tasks or is it holistic, relationship-based care of all aspects of the person’s care? Wholism with a ‘w’ is what is currently taught in most nursing program. In these programs, nurses are taught that people have different subsystems which need to be care for. That people are the sum of these different parts. This is different that the belief that all of our subsystems, are in constant interaction, affecting one another. With “wholistic” care we look at the different parts of the person and treat them accordingly. The focus is usually dealing with the physical domain. For example, when a nurse takes a history and assessment, they focus on the physical or clinical health–they assess the body; whereas in holistic nursing, we do a holistic assessment and include an emotional, cognitive, psychosocial and spiritual as well as the physical assessment. We look at how the spiritual aspects of the person affect the emotional or the emotional aspects/subsystem affect the person’s physical health. Most nursing education programs teach that you must consider the different subsystems, but they don’t teach a holistic approach, where the nurse learns to assess the person holistically.  Nurses need to look at the whole person, not just the heart attack in room 225, the post-surgical hip replacement in room 5, etc.  Nursing education must change if we expect to have nurses provide holistic care vs. focusing on the person’s bio-medical needs and issues.

IHPC: How does AHNCC work to address these issues?

ME: –AHNCC is the national credentialing body for Holistic Nursing and Nurse Coaching. We work closely with the American Holistic Nursing Association (AHNA), which is our membership organization. AHNCC’s mission is to provide rigorous, valid examinations that test holistic nurse and nurse coaches’ knowledge, skills, expertise, attitudes, and values. Although our nurses may use healing therapies/interventions such as massage, aromatherapy, or healing energy, it’s not what defines them.  They are just additional tools that they carry in their tool box.

To apply for holistic nursing certification, AHNCC applicants must complete educational programs and courses that focus on holistic nursing theory, research, practice, spirituality, health, wellness, wellbeing, etc. Many of these educational programs are offered by AHNA or by other accredited institutions or organizations. Recent, active nursing practice is also required. AHNCC also offers nurse coaching certification which is geared toward the skills, knowledge, expertise, values, and attitudes utilized when practicing in the role of nurse coaching. Our nurses work in all settings and with people throughout the lifespan. At this time, we credential only RNs; we don’t have programs for other disciplines.

IHPC: You have been involved with the organization two decades. How have you seen it evolve?

ME: AHNCC started with one exam in 2000: we now have 5 and two certification programs (holistic nursing and nurse coaching). We are very proud of that.  In addition to the two certification programs, AHNCC has acquired national accreditation from the ABSNC, and our examinations are ANCC Magnet approved. Both of these recognitions validate the rigor and value of our certifications. AHNCC also works with universities around the country to create holistic-based nursing curriculum because how we educate nurses is so important. If we educate only about symptoms, illness, and disease then you have nurses prepared to work within and support a sick-care system.

We believe that self-awareness, self-reflection, self-care, and ongoing growth and development is essential to holistic nursing practice. What I learned 20 years ago is not sufficient for what I need to know now. As a holistic nurse, one is expected to continually commit to learning experiences and educational opportunities to support the lifelong learning process.  With that in mind, we have built a repository for current educational programs that will support our certificants’ lifelong learning needs. We have seen a lot of growth and many changes in the last 20 years, but it is not happening fast enough.

IHPC: Nurses are under a lot of pressure in the current COVID-19 crisis. How do you see their role changing as a result?

ME: Self-care is something we have been talking about for 40 years, but COVID is bringing it forward full force. Self-care is not just for patients. It means caring for yourself as a nurse so you can care for others.  You have to have balance and a sense of harmony to do that.  I also facilitate self-care for my patients so they have resources to do what they need to do to get well. It’s a big problem now, as we see nurses and other healthcare providers who are stressed out; nurses leaving the profession or retiring earlier than ever before. But we are making progress. The importance of caring for self and how it impacts a nurse’s or other care providers’ resiliency and decreases compassion fatigue and the need for care providers to have the support and resources so they can care for others is being recognized and valued.

The role of holistic nursing is also becoming more prominent in the COVID era. The ability to be present, hold a hand, support families and people who are dying has often been absent during this pandemic, and these services have been missed. Nurses and those they care for expect and need to have their physical needs met, but what has been missing and is often shared by distraught nurses is their ability to address the client’s spiritual, emotional, and social needs. We need to pay attention because viruses don’t go away. We need to learn to live with them. One of the things we can do is to help people build stronger immune systems and seek higher levels of wellbeing. How we feel and think, what we eat, the stress we experience, toxic relationships, etc. all impact on our ability to stay well and fight off viruses or other health challenges. We also know that the healthcare system we have is broken, and we need to make changes. A paradigm shift is required which moves our focus from illness and disease to health, wellness, and wellbeing. COVID has challenged and highlighted what isn’t working and given us the opportunity to keep what is working, and make the necessary changes that will better serve all of us.

IHPC: You have an expanding role with IHPC. What do you hope to accomplish?

ME: One thing I am encouraging IHPC to do is to continue think about who we are as organization.  Are we a collection of integrative practitioners who practice separately or a holistic integrative organization working together, grounded in our values and philosophy. Who do we serve? We need to dialogue more about the intent of our work and our mission, collectively, as an organization.

The challenge in healthcare is to get out of our silos while respecting and validating what each profession offers and to recognize the expertise, skills, and knowledge each profession can share with the collective group. Traditionally in healthcare we have had a linear, patriarchal system. Our system is top to bottom with clients at the bottom and that needs to change. I believe that all of healthcare providers are my colleagues. We work and collaborate together to empower and facilitate the client in healing. That if anyone is in the driver’s seat, it is the client. I know I have a different perspective than some of my colleagues. We often talk about patients being noncompliant. I believe that is because we are approaching it the wrong way. We need to be empowering the client–who by the way has the most invested and the most to lose–to co-create a plan of care with them that they buy into. When people are supported–given control and choices–they engage and healthcare outcomes become very different.

IHPC: You are also working with IHPC to address issues of equity, diversity and inclusion in health care. How can this lead to a change in the system?

We have systemic problems in healthcare, the government, and education. As an organization, IHPC’s intent is to address making healthcare accessible for all. I think we need to become more educated and informed if we are to work towards our goal of equal access and health care services for all people, especially the vulnerable and disenfranchised populations. Our communities, society, and even globally is only as strong as our most vulnerable populations. Learning about equity, diversity, inclusion, and social justice (EDISJ) issues and how we change systemic racism will impact on not just who sits on the Board, but on how IHPC presents ourselves, our policies, and procedures, our committee work, etc. We all have blind spots, so we have to commit to learning opportunities that present themselves and recognize that this is an ongoing process.  Working with Tracy Bowen, Executive Director at IHPC, is helping me to realize some of my own blind spots. The more blind spots we uncover, the more of a holistic understanding and perspective we will have to address these critical issues.

As a starting point, I believe that IHPC needs to begin our EDISJ education, so we will be better able to do our work. Currently, we have a fairly homogenous organization, our diversity is not great. More diversity will broaden and strengthen our world view. Diversity makes us stronger and allows us to have more resources to do our work. As our organizational worldview expands and we have fewer blind spots, we will be better able to serve our stakeholders.

Going back to my American Indian patient, if we had had someone there who could have bridged that gap, we would have been more attuned to his needs. So that is one of the areas I am working on: to see that our world view is expanded. The broader it is, the more effective we will be in supporting health, wellness, and wellbeing for our clients and society at large.

IHPC is a great model for interdisciplinary work, and I believe a team approach is the future in health care systems. IHPC is one of the few organizations I have worked with that sets the intent to honor and respect each other. It has great potential for helping change the paradigm. We just have to get past the growing pains, like all organizations. It is a wonderful inclusive model, and I would like to see this idea accepted, valued, and implemented in all health care systems. By elevating, recognizing, and validating the significance and worth of integrative practitioners like acupuncturists, naturopaths, or chiropractors, we are better able to serve our clients and communities.

Perhaps now, COVID, the continued highlighting of systemic racism, our sense of being disconnected from our loved ones and support systems, extreme economic upheaval, and other issues that have changed how we live our lives as we knew it, etc. are creating a perfect storm which will mandate systemic changes. We need to embrace this opportunity. Change is hard, but we can do it.

“Pain-demic” – Fallout from COVID-19 Congressional Briefing
The Opioid Epidemic and Recommendations for Non-Drug Approaches to Pain Management

WASHINGTON, DC – July 30, 2020 – The “Pain-demic” bi-partisan virtual briefing hosted by the Integrative Health Policy Consortium (IHPC) and the Congressional Caucus for Integrative Health and Wellness highlighted how COVID-19 has exacerbated the nation’s raging opioid crisis and amplified the need to remove barriers to essential cost effective, non-opioid, non-drug pain treatments.  “Unfortunately, the measures we have taken to control  the spread of the Corona Virus have only exacerbated our fight against another crisis, the Opioid epidemic,” stated Congresswoman Judy Chu (D-CA) Co-Chair of the Congressional Integrative Health and Wellness Caucus.

This briefing identified current highly effective Federally sponsored programs that are proving the effectiveness of non-opioid, non-drug pain management.  U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Task Force Chairperson and pain management expert, Vanila Singh, M.D. presented the groundbreaking findings and recommendations of her 29-member, inter-agency Task Force, in their exceptional Best Practices in Pain Management report. “The Congressionally mandated Pain Management Report establishes a 360-degree strategy to effectively address the various chronic painful conditions in a patient-centered, individualized manner that presents all the various treatment modalities utilizing non-pharmacologic and pharmacologic integrative health solutions.  The recommended best practices present effective and compassionate approaches to acute and chronic pain with the aim to improve clinical best outcomes with an improved quality of life for the millions of Americans suffering from chronic pain,” stated Dr. Singh.

Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC) are leading the way in implementing the HHS Task Force best practices to address the opioid crisis.  FQHC’s are the nation’s largest public healthcare safety net caring for 30 million children and adults who are part of our rapidly growing Community Health Center population.  Sharad Kohli, M.D., a FQHC family physician, detailed his experience “in the trenches” bringing non-drug, innovative pain management programs to some of the hardest hit communities in Austin Texas.  Dr. Kohli shared that a major challenge is that these effective non-drug approaches are not reimbursed through insurance programs.  “If we can figure out how to make the non-drug treatments reimbursable, then we could widely expand our services and would not be dependent on limited grant funds.”  Dr. Kohli also stated that he is uncertain how many FCQHC’s are currently using these effective non-drug pain approaches as there has not been a survey to assess how many Clinics are adopting the recommendations as yet.

“We are working to expand access to non-opioid alternatives to pain management, and committed to educating patients and providers about these innovative options,” stated Congresswoman Jackie Walorski (R-IN), Caucus Co-Chair and supporter of recent key language in the 2021 Appropriations Bill to that effect. Indeed, the U.S. House of Representatives included language in a report accompanying its version of the Fiscal Year 2021 Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations bill requesting that the Department of Health and Human Services develop a plan for disseminating and implementing the Task Force Report’s recommendations. “It is essential that as we look towards recovery, we ensure that Integrative Health policies are included.  We need to ensure that patients have access to non-opioid, non-surgical options like Acupuncture, to treat their chronic pain.  These therapies are non-addictive and do not carry similar risks of overdose,” stated Congressmember Chu.

To view the recorded briefing/slides: http://www.ihpc.org/the-congressional-integrative-health-and-wellness-caucus/

To access HHS Task Force Report & toolkit:  https://www.hhs.gov/ash/advisory-committees/pain/reports/index.html

About the Integrative Health Policy Consortium:

The Integrative Health Policy Consortium (IHPC), a trusted voice on Capitol Hill, is comprised of 26 professional organizations and institutions representing more than 650,000 state-licensed and nationally certified healthcare professionals.  IHPC champions the Congressional Integrative Health & Wellness Caucus and functions as a critical watchdog of the federal agencies overseeing America’s health and health

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FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
Tracy Bowen, Executive Director
Integrative Health Policy Consortium, IHPC
(202) 746-1663 / Tbowen@ihpc.org

Reevaluation, vision and opportunity

In times of trouble or when crisis strikes, what is most important to us usually becomes crystal clear. The global pandemic and the surging movement to finally end systemic racism have sharpened that clarity for IHPC through its mission to eliminate barriers to health for All.  Over the last four months that has translated into increasing our advocacy with lawmakers to meet the immediate needs of the integrative health community, to elevate the efficacy and fiscal importance of a wellness approach to health, and to seize new opportunities to impact the healthcare debate during this time of extraordinary change.

This week, as a result of these efforts and the leadership of the Congressional Health and Wellness Caucus co-chairs, Congresswoman Judy Chu (D-CA) and Congresswoman Jackie Walorski (R-IN), as well as Congressman Tim Ryan (D-OH), the House Appropriations committee added language directing the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Veterans Affairs Administration (VAA) to implement measures that will expand the availability of integrated health services and open new opportunities for integrative health providers.  Specifically, HHS is to implement recommendations of the HHS Pain Management Best Practices Inter-Agency Report and VA is to expand its ground-breaking Whole Health System of Care program.  You can review specific language of Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations Bill here and the Miliary Construction, Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill here.

IHPC Executive Director, Tracy Bowen, stated, “The inclusion of this language is a major step forward toward meeting our larger objective of having integrative health recognized as a cornerstone of our nation’s healthcare system.”  The early days of the pandemic saw Bowen and the group’s Capitol Outreach Team shifting their focus to aggressively address integrative health issues relevant to the pandemic such as telehealth, insurance reimbursement and inclusion in legislation for healthcare pandemic relief. “When the COVID crisis came into full swing, our first concern was to get support for integrative health professionals during this difficult time,” said Bowen.  “We also recognized that this crisis presents a unique opportunity to raise awareness about the critical importance of integrative health professions and a wellness approach to healthcare.”

“The pandemic has highlighted many of the deficiencies of our current healthcare system, which has prioritized acute and reactive care instead of prevention, lifestyle modifications and wellness for chronic disease,” noted David Fogel, MD, CEO and co-founder of CHI Health Care, and an IHPC at-large board member and co-chair of IHPC’s Policy Committee. Because IHPC has now established a place at the table for emergency relief, Fogel said, it will help the group remain relevant for further dialogue and opportunity in the future. “We are advocating for language and strategies that will affect the larger footprint of health and wellness for years to come, and our current engagement with congressional leaders is establishing momentum for our long-term core policy agenda,” Fogel added.

As the group developed new strategies and priorities, Bowen and the IHPC board kept coming back to one essential truth. “We realized that our COVID efforts must reflect our mission of eliminating barriers to health — to provide access to wellness approaches to health.”  The brutal murder of George Floyd and the subsequent national upwelling to end systemic racism elevated IHPC’s dialogue about health disparities and structural inequities, sharpening the focus on eliminating barriers to health for All. “We are deeply committed to our own internal work of equity, diversity and inclusion and to elevating our policy focus on access to wellness care in underserved populations.” Bowen noted.

An Enduring Mission in a New Normal

IHPC continues to watch and advocate for inclusion of the integrative health community in future Congressional COVID-19 economic relief packages, but the group is also redoubling their efforts on their core policy agenda.  IHPC believes that its mission to eliminate barriers to health by championing systemic change to U.S. healthcare and prioritizing health creation over reactive disease management is now more meaningful than ever. IHPC’s 2020 four key focus areas continue to be relevant:

• Expand awareness of the nation’s pain and opioid crisis, which has been severely impacted by the COVID-19 crisis, and advocate for accessible, non-pharmacological approaches to pain management.
• Elevate a whole person model of care that champions a patient-centric and interdisciplinary care team.
• Advocate for veteran’s health by promoting the Veteran’s Whole Health program, a federally funded systems-approach to healthcare.
• Support the nation’s Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs), a system of Community Health Centers which provides health services to more than 29 million uninsured or underinsured people nationwide, and advocating for their use of integrative health professions.

As the world shifts to a new standard of social engagement through virtual events, IHPC is finding that it can actually access a much larger audience than ever. “Because we are no longer limited to physical space and time to go from one office to another, we can reach a lot more people at the same time, and it makes it easier for staff to tune in or watch a recording later,” Fogel said. As a result, IHPC, in collaboration with the Congressional Integrative Health and Wellness Caucus, will host a virtual congressional briefing on July 24^th (see the invitation here). “What always gets the attention of staffers on the Hill is an event that will impact a member’s constituents,” said Fogel. These virtual events, he explained, are “gaining momentum because they offer the possibility of a much broader audience interested in these issues, who will be writing, calling and emailing their members of Congress.”

As IHPC continues to adapt to the immense challenges brought about by COVID-19 and to respond to its enhanced mandate to eliminate barriers to health for All, the group has discovered new energy and meaning in the tasks at hand. Even though things are changing at lightning speed, the challenges are fueling the IHPC membership’s passion and energy to support the mission of IHPC.

House Appropriations Committee Supports IHPC Priorities

July 14, 2020

The Integrative Health Policy Consortium (IHPC) praises the U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Committee for including language in two recent reports accompanying the Fiscal Year 2021 Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations and the Fiscal Year 2021 Military Constructions, Veterans Affairs Appropriations bills addressing priorities of the integrative health care community.

Specifically, reports accompanying these essential annual funding bills include language urging:

1. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to widely disseminate and to create a strategic plan to implement recommendations in the HHS Pain Management Best Practices Inter-Agency Task Force Report; and,
2. The Veterans Affairs Administration to support and expand the Whole Health System of Care (WHS) program.

The language, as it appeared in both reports, is listed below.

IHPC is very grateful to the co-chairs of the Congressional Health and Wellness Caucus, Congresswoman Judy Chu (D-CA) and Congresswoman Jackie Walorski (R-IN), and to Congressman Tim Ryan (D-OH) for their leadership and for championing the inclusion of these provisions in both appropriations reports.

IHPC looks forward to working with Congress and the Administration to achieve the ambitious goals articulated in both reports.

LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES AND EDUCATION APPROPRIATIONS BILL, 2021 (click for full Bill)

Chronic Pain.—The Committee remains concerned about the public health epidemic of acute and chronic pain, including its interrelationship with the opioid crisis. The Committee is pleased with the release of the HHS Pain Management Best Practices Inter-Agency Task Force Report in May 2019, but remains concerned over delayed dissemination and implementation of the Report’s recommendations. A strategic plan to disseminate the report and implement recommendations is needed, and the Committee strongly encourages the Department to widely disseminate the Report to health care providers and other public health stakeholders, and to update relevant pain management policies and educational tools to reflect Task Force recommended best practices across all relevant HHS agencies, including the CDC, CMS, SAMHSA and other relevant agencies. The Committee also urges the Department to coordinate with the Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs to launch a public awareness campaign to educate Americans about acute and chronic pain and the evidence based non-opioid treatment options that are available, including non-opioid medications; interventional procedures such as nerve blocks, injections and surgical devices; behavioral health approaches such as cognitive behavioral therapy; and complementary and  integrative health therapies such as massage therapy and acupuncture. (page 204)

MILITARY CONSTRUCTION, VETERANS AFFAIRS, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIRATIONS BILL, 2021 (click for full Bill)

Continued Support and Expansion for Whole Heath.—As of October 2017, 18 VA medical centers have received funding to implement the Whole Health System of Care (WHS). WHS, a three-year pilot program, meets the intent of the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act by delivering patient-centered care and complementary and integrative health approaches to our nation’s Veterans especially those who are struggling with opioid use disorder and chronic pain. In January 2020, VA released an evaluation of the WHS, which concluded: (1) the program had a positive impact on reducing opioid use among Veterans; (2) Veterans who used WHS, compared to those who did not, experienced greater improvements in perceived stress indicating improvements in overall wellbeing; and (3) comprehensive WHS service revealed potential savings in pharmacy costs. The Committee is pleased by the results of this evaluation and urges VA to continue supporting the WHS and to expand it beyond the 18 flagship sites in fiscal year 2021. (page 65)