Milestones are important. Hank Aaron with 755 home runs. Cal Ripken with 2,632 consecutive games played. Last week, our Pharmacists Provide Care campaign reached an important milestone. Pharmacists and student pharmacists have sent more than 20,000 letters and e-mails to Congress to support provider status legislation. This monumental outreach to policy makers has taken place in only 3 months, making it the largest grassroots advocacy push, on record, in the Association’s 163-year history. 

If you are one of those who sent communications, you should be encouraged by what we have accomplished together! Pharmacists are speaking up and making our case directly to Congress. To commemorate this milestone, we got APhA Annual Meeting Host (and Honorary Pharmacist) Mark Walberg, of “Antiques Roadshow” fame, to record a congratulatory message.  

Our voices are being heard. The support our profession is receiving from state and federal policy makers is remarkable. In late January, the Pharmacy and Medically Underserved Areas Enhancement Act was introduced in both the U.S. House (H.R. 592) and U.S. Senate (S. 314), a critical step in achieving provider status at the federal level. Since then, APhA and the Pharmacists Provide Care campaign have been providing regular updates to you on how pharmacists can encourage their Members of Congress to sign on as cosponsors of the bill, showing momentum on this issue. As of today, there are 119 bipartisan cosponsors on the House bill and 14 cosponsors on the Senate bill.

Of course, records are made to be broken, and we are committed to sending even MORE letters to Congress. If you are one of those who has not yet acted, now is the time! Express your support for improving patient access to health care through pharmacists’ patient care services. Congress is beginning to hear us, but we have many more lawmakers to reach. To add your voice, please take 5 minutes, visit PharmacistsProvideCare.com​ and click Take Action to send your own message to Congress.