Services
For over 30 years, Larry LaMotte has worked with opinion leaders, lobbyists, politicians, and healthcare leaders to shape health care policy and advocate for patients’ increased access to affordable care. Breaking through barriers and providing patients opportunities to access and afford the care they need, when they need it, has proven to be challenging yet rewarding. Larry now applies those skills and knowledge to his work with Advocacy Options, delivering clients real strategies to get real results.
Advocating for Patients at The Federal Level
We advocate on behalf of patients before Congress and various regulatory agencies such as Health and Human Services (HHS), Medicare and Medicaid (CMS), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) is critical to achieving public policy goals.
Advocacy Options provides government relations advocacy to patient advocacy organizations on “access to affordable care” issues such as the Copay Accumulator Adjustment policies of private payers, specialty tier cost discrimination by private payers, non-acceptance of third-party co-payments and other policies which shift more out-of-pocket (OOP) costs to patients which economically discriminate against patients – especially those with rare and chronic diseases.[LL1]
Some patient advocacy organizations may need more research regarding their constituent disease. Advocacy Options has successful experience in helping organizations seek funds from PCORI for rapid research that could lead to more funding for research in the future.
We have also helped organizations to work with the FDA in developing Externally-Led Patient Focused Drug Development forums to better inform the FDA the major factors and nuances of their disease for the FDA to use as they may review drug applications.
Advocacy Options has the know-how and experience to:
- Analyze policy objectives leading to the development and enactment of legislation.
- Coordinate a comprehensive advocacy strategy including direct advocacy, strategic communications (earned and paid media), grassroots/grasstops mobilization, and policy development.
- Identify, cultivate, maintain, and leverage strategic relationships with federal and state policymakers including members of Congress and staff on both sides of the aisle, “Washington insiders,” key opinion leaders, state officials, constituents, media and in-state allies.
- Proactively position and represent client interests to public policy experts, legislators, and regulators through direct lobbying and coalition building.
- Prepare and submit regulatory and policy comments to agencies and represent at relevant agency meetings such as Medicare, Medicaid, FDA and NIH.
Coalition Leadership
There’s always strength in numbers. When there are policy/legislative issues which cross varied shared interests, a coalition of like-minded stakeholders may provide the leverage to advance those interests and change the status quo. Our leadership experience with stakeholder coalitions has been a hallmark of our work. Representative coalitions include: American Plasma Users Coalition (APLUS), Patients for Biologic Safety and Access (PBSA), Coalition for Accessible Treatments (CAT), etc.
Advocating for Patients at The State Level
Increasingly more patient access to care and healthcare issues are addressed by state governments and regulatory agencies. The patient-centric issues most prevalent at the state level include legislative efforts to curb the use of “Step Therapy”, Co-Pay Accumulators, changes in Medicaid and Out of Pocket Costs. Advocacy Options has the unique understanding and expertise to effectively use digital advocacy techniques with state legislatures and has successfully lobbied state regulatory agencies and insurance commissions.
Value-based Health Care: Giving Voice to Patients
Value-based health policy is the most recent health care policy “buzzword”. Yet, there is no official definition and it is too often used by healthcare system stakeholders in ways most advantageous to their financial interests. For patient-centric stakeholders, “value frameworks” must tie together both drug costs and patient outcomes – not just costs. Patient voices must be heard and Advocacy Options can help make sure they are heard.
Organizations such as ICER often do not view or fully recognize that patient outcomes are equally important to financial concerns. These groups are now increasingly being called upon by payers to analyze and assess the efficacy of keeping drugs in their formularies or not. Patient advocacy groups must be a part of this process both to educate payers and the reviewers and to protect the interests of patients who successfully use these drugs. Advocacy Options is able to advise and assist patient advocacy organizations to be an integral part of the process to protect their constituents’ interests.