Join Us to Advance Your Priorities With the New Administration and Congress

It’s a busy winter for the AAFP’s advocacy.

One reason for this is the mid-December collapse of a federal spending package that would have addressed a number of the Academy’s advocacy priorities, including a correction of the 2.8% cut to physician pay in the 2025 Medicare physician fee schedule. The short-term deal that emerged instead puts immediate pressure on the new Congress to find a way forward by March 14. That’s the next deadline to fund the government. Between now and then, the AAFP will continue to press Congress to address that pay cut and its impacts.

Meanwhile, the second presidential administration of Donald Trump is officially under way amid a flurry of activity, starting with agency and cabinet appointments that directly affect your practices and patients.

In recent letters, the AAFP outlined our policy priorities to the incoming administration and the 119th Congress. In brief, the Academy is calling on the White House and lawmakers to

• boost federal investment in primary care by enacting long-term, comprehensive reforms to fee-for-service payment, including Medicare physician payment;

• support promising alternative payment models and continue clearing the path for a transition to value-based payment;

• address the health care consolidation and misaligned incentives that jeopardize patients’ access to primary care;

• reduce your administrative burden by reforming utilization management processes and better leveraging the potential of artificial intelligence, among other actions;

• increase and sustain the primary care workforce, with particular focus on robust funding for the Teaching Health Center Graduate Medical Education Program, the National Health Service Corps, and any other programs that help to recruit, train and retain primary care physicians; and

• promote strong public health by ensuring that all Americans have access to high-quality primary care, including all recommended vaccines for patients of all ages.

I urge you to echo this message by using the AAFP’s Speak Out tool, which lets you contact your members of Congress directly with an email laying out these calls to action.

How Our Advocacy Works for You — and Why It Works Better With You

This opening salvo in our 2025 push to strengthen family medicine practices and improve community health nationwide is just one pillar of the Academy’s advocacy. Beyond this federal advocacy and the meetings we’re putting on the books right now to advance our goals, the AAFP’s policy portfolio includes state advocacy, chapter advocacy and private-payer advocacy.

These interwoven efforts are complex, as are the issues at play and the strategies we employ to bring about change. But they’re all rooted in a simple aim: amplifying the needs and interests of you and your patients. And we have charted clear successes while increasing our influence with federal and state policymakers as well as with public and private payers.

Thanks in large part to the Academy’s leadership over many years, these entities understand that primary care is central to the nation’s health. They understand, but they still require steady pressure to turn that understanding into action. The AAFP exerts that pressure, backed up by data — and by your own personal advocacy.

Your advocacy is rooted in the stories you share with policymakers about your practice and your patients, in your deep expertise and experience, and in the roots you’ve put down in your communities. Your calls and letters, the meetings you’ve had (with guidance and support from your chapters and the Academy’s Washington, D.C., advocacy team): Your advocacy moves the needle.

Become an Advocacy Ambassador

That’s why I’m excited to tell you about the Academy’s new Advocacy Ambassador program, designed to help you easily and meaningfully engage with your federal and state lawmakers. This new initiative, which evolved from our successful Key Contacts program, helps family physician advocates broaden their reach and build relationships.

Bolstered by the Academy, Ambassadors will operate across the full spectrum of advocacy, working toward continuous engagement and involvement in shaping health care policy and improving patient outcomes where they work and live. Find out more here.

Come to the Capitol in June

Finally, I’m excited to tell you that registration is open for the AAFP’s Family Medicine Advocacy Summit, coming June 22-24. This is our signature event when it comes to in-person advocacy, when Academy members join their chapter colleagues for enlightening updates, valuable training and face-to-face conversations with members of Congress and congressional staff about our top legislative priorities. You don’t have to bring any policy expertise or advocacy experience to FMAS, but you’ll leave with both.