## Fact sheets can help you lobby for family practice issues

Suppose you're interested in lobbying your lawmaker and want to encourage more funding for the National Health Service Corps.

To give you background information for your advocacy efforts, the Academy has put online some fact sheets about NHSC and other topics. The NHSC fact sheet covers issues such as loan repayment.

At a May 20 legislative briefing in Washington, Tanya Jones, M.D., of Atlanta, chair of the AAFP Commission on Legislation and Governmental Affairs, told about 50 family physicians, "There has been tremendous hardship and controversy about NHSC physicians not receiving contractually promised educational loan repayment assistance. The money was cut. A lot of people, especially in rural and underserved areas, are critically dependent on this program. It is essential to address any lawmaker's suggestion that poor management should result in dropping the NHSC program. Don't let Congress throw the baby out with the bath water."

The NHSC fact sheet says Congress should reauthorize the corps, increase its funding, and offer tax relief for NHSC scholarships covering tuition and educational fees.

Access AAFP's legislative fact sheets at http://www.aafp.org/gov/fed/bg.html .

Jones also discussed other fact sheets used by the family physicians during the next two days in meetings with lawmakers and their aides on Capitol Hill (see story on page 1).

The other fact sheets cover Title VII funding for family practice training, support for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, managed care reform, the Medicare Education and Regulatory Fairness Act, a Medicare prescription drug benefit and patient safety reporting systems.

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