APsaA Marches on Washington

In the third week in June, APsaA will hold meetings in Washington, D.C., which will include a Breakfast Forum in the Capitol at which APsaA members will have an opportunity to meet and confer with members of Congress and their staffs. These meetings could hardly come at a more propitious time. The right to health information privacy, which is critical to effective psychotherapy, is hanging in the balance as Congress considers enacting health information technology and pay-for-performance (P4P) laws. Numerous bills are pending in Congress that would eliminate the right to health information privacy, and perhaps the psychotherapist-patient privilege at the federal and state levels, in a two-step process. First, a national “interoperable” (accessible from anywhere in the world) electronic health information system would be established and, second, all practitioners would be required to include their patient's health information in such a system in order to be paid under a “P4P” standard.

APsaA representatives, with the authorization of its officers, have been conducting an intensive education campaign for members of Congress and their staffs over the past three months in an effort to show them that strong privacy protections are essential for quality health care and are expected by the public. We have impressed upon Congressional representatives that mental health practitioners are the “canaries in the coal mine” when it comes to threats to health information privacy. APsaA's members hear of the concerns from patients first and their patients are the most adversely affected by the mere threat of the loss of privacy. We have conducted briefings of members of the Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce Committees and have been invited to testify and to give privacy seminars to the members on the subject of health information privacy.

To the credit of representatives of Congress and their staffs, they seem to be listening and learning that strong privacy principles must be included in any health IT system from the beginning. Members are also beginning to listen to APsaA's arguments that any health IT system should be grounded in privacy principles contained in established standards of medical ethics, the law of psychotherapist-patient privilege, and constitutional common law. These principles reflect the expectations of generations of patients and practitioners. As APsaA President-Elect Prudy Gourguechon stated when asked by a federal commission whether privacy principles in professional ethics should be balanced against the need for disclosure of health information, “We never put ethics on the scale.”

This is the kind of information that Congress needs to hear, and they need to hear it now from real mental health practitioners who treat real patients. Congress cannot make good laws if it does not get good information. Your profession, your patients, and your colleagues need you to attend the Washington meetings and visit your Congressional representatives. The right to health information privacy, and perhaps the practice of quality psychotherapy as you know it, is at stake. We will provide talking points and briefing papers as the meetings approach and will hold a final update and instructional meeting on the evening of June 14. The Breakfast Forum will take place on the morning of June 15, and we urge you to visit the offices of your Congressional representatives before or after the forum. Of course, you should schedule those meetings in advance.

APsaA held a very successful Capitol Breakfast Forum in May of 1999. Since that meeting, APsaA has increasingly become recognized as a force for quality psychotherapy among members of Congress. Today, APsaA is routinely asked to review legislation that may have an impact on the practice of psychotherapy. Now is the time for you to help broaden and improve APsaA's presence on Capitol Hill.