The National Association of County and City Health Officials Honors

Anthony L-T Chen, MD, MPH, as its 2019 Advocate of the Year

Washington, DC, August 6, 2019 — As part of fulfilling its mission as the voice of local health departments, the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO), representing the nation’s nearly 3,000 local governmental health departments, named Dr. Anthony L-T Chen, Director of Health of Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department, its Advocate of the Year. This award recognizes outstanding accomplishments related to advocacy and outreach to members of Congress to create better health policy outcomes. Dr. Chen received the award the organization’s 2019 Annual Convention in Orlando.

“Our members of Congress rely on us to understand local public health efforts, data, and emerging issues,” said Dr. Chen. “We are committed to collaborating with them to make sure federal programs and policies keep our residents and communities healthy and safe.”

“Lawmakers look to local leaders to inform their work—and public health policy and funding decisions are no exception,” said NACCHO’s chief executive officer Lori Tremmel Freeman, MBA. “A successful advocate develops meaningful relationships with members of Congress and their staffs and becomes a trusted messenger and resource on public health matters. We applaud the work of Dr. Chen and his team at Tacoma-Pierce

County Health Department who have done just that to be a strong advocate for the policies and resources local health departments need to keep our communities healthy and safe.”

Dr. Chen and his staff at Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department have worked tirelessly to develop the relationships and structures to effectively advocate for public health issues. Over the past 10 years, he has advanced personal relationships with district and congressional staff, regardless of party affiliation, who respond to his messages, reach out to seek input, and arrange meet with his health department when they are in the district. He similarly has developed relationships with NACCHO to leverage national public health efforts.

In addition, Dr. Chen has instituted a culture of advocacy in his health department by tracking federal policy issues, developing annual summaries of federal public health priorities, and a developing a suite of communications tools for effectively delivering and responding to messages.

He has also worked to forge personal relationships with Congressional staff and elected officials, participating with Senator Patty Murray for a roundtable on public health emergency preparedness and inviting staff to visit the health department and learn about their work firsthand.

Republished from www.naccho.org

Anthony is a committed member of the Reede Scholars Leadership Retreat task force, contributing much to the success of the 2019 meeting. He is an insightful, conscientious thought leader. Congratulations Anthony!

  HEALTH POLICY BRIEF 

By Chloe Slocum, MD, MPH, RS ‘17 

Cost and Quality

Health care quality measurement experts released several recommendations for the Health Quality Roadmap mandated in an earlier  executive order , which the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) has been  tasked  with creating based upon input from federal and private health care leaders. Measurement experts argue that  many measures currently in use  for alternative payment models (APMs) impose undue provider burden, lack outcomes measures that adequately assess delivery system performance, lack a systematic approach to retirement of low-value measures, and rely on point-in-time estimates as opposed to longitudinal performance assessments. By contrast, the authors contend that quality measures included in new payment models  should be  outcomes-oriented, patient-centered, sourced from different types of data, longitudinal, and site-agnostic.

Health Law

The American Hospital Association (AHA) and five other hospital groups filed an  amicus brief  urging the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California to prevent the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS)  public charge rule  from taking effect on October 15, 2019. The brief states that the rule would force millions of immigrants “to choose between accepting public services and accepting a green card […] an impossible choice,” and that coverage losses “will lead to sicker immigrant populations and increased emergency-room visits, forcing hospitals to provide more uncompensated care and divert resources from expanding access to health care and other community services.” A prior  analysis  estimated that 13.2 million Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) enrollees could disenroll as a result of the rule.

Medicaid

States have  mixed results  when coordinating patient care and addressing social determinants of health to manage health care costs for high-cost Medicaid beneficiaries, according to a new Government Accountability Office (GAO)  report . States and federal officials continue to search for ways to reduce Medicaid spending, which is expected to cost $1 trillion by 2026 and about half of which is attributable to just 5% of Medicaid recipients.

Medicare

Hundreds of health care organizations sent a  letter  to Congress urging lawmakers to pass a bill to protect growing numbers of Medicare Advantage (MA) beneficiaries from  prior authorization requirements . The groups called for bipartisan legislation “to help protect patients from unnecessary delays in care by streamlining and standardizing prior authorization,” although major payers have  continued to defend  the use of prior authorization as a means to control costs and ensure that beneficiaries receive clinically appropriate care. Meanwhile, a new analysis showed that while nearly 15 million Medicare enrollees with diabetes or chronic kidney disease are eligible for  personal nutrition counseling , only about 100,000 received counseling in 2017.

Public Health

In partnership with the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), HHS has awarded $9 million to Texas, New Mexico, and Missouri to  develop programs  that will address health disparities by expanding access to obstetric and maternal health care through the Rural Maternity and Obstetrics Management Strategies (RMOMS) program. In related news, researchers studying suicide rates in the U.S. from 1999-2016 found that suicide rates were higher and increased more rapidly in rural than in large metropolitan counties and that a variety of  context-specific factors  were associated with county-level suicide rates in rural counties across the U.S. U.S. Senators urged the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) to do more to  regulate devices used for vaping  after the agency  announced  plans to finalize a  policy  in the coming weeks that will ban flavored e-cigarettes.

Technology

Apple announced  three studies  in partnership with leading academic and research institutions that will be available to participants on its forthcoming Research app and are aimed at studying how women’s health issues, heart rate, mobility, everyday sound exposure, and hearing relate to various health outcomes. 

Join us for the 11th Annual Health Equity Symposium

May 7, 2020

Boston, MA

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