Texas Pharmacy Legislative Updates – TPA & DAPA

This post will have continuous updates on Legislative changes and initiatives from TPA and DAPA.

The Legislative Updates/Snippets are presented by Melanie Smith at every DAPA meeting.

If you have any questions about any of these updates, please meet with Melanie Smith at our meetings, or email her at melaniehopesmith@gmail.com

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CALL TO ACTION
Pharmacists, Pharmacy Technicians, and Pharmacy Students!
Be a RESOURCE to your Texas Legislators!
Support PharmPAC
Renew & Join TPA!
VOTE!
Look for the NEXT election date!

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Presented to DAPA on March 2019 by Melanie Smith:

Texas Pharmacy Day at the Capitol
Since December I have been updating you on Pharmacy Day at the Capitol. Well, it happened! It was ENERGIZING and FUN.

200 pharmacists including DAPA’s own
Melanie Smith, Jamahla Murgerson, Chris Dembny, anyone else?
And 400 students from 7 TX pharmacy schools, including Susan Dembny, UH P2 student and Chris’s daughter,were among the 
600 pharmacy professionals gatheredin Austin on Tuesday, Feb 26 for the Pharmacy Day at the Capitol. It was the biggest Pharmacy Day yet.
The day started at 7:30 AM with TPA’s informative, interactive and organized training session that began with welcomes from TPA ED Debbie Garza and Austin’s own State Sen. Kirk Watson (D-14).  

A lively panel discussion about effective advocacy techniquesfeatured the legislature’s only pharmacist, Sen. Charles Schwertner (R-Georgetown) along with Rep. John Raney (R-College Station) and Rep. Richard Raymond (D-Laredo). 

Association leaders and lobbyists from the TPA and other Texas pharmacy organizations (aka Pharmacy Summit)educated attendees about priority legislation that all Texas pharmacy supports. We concluded the session withrole-played meetings with lawmakers and their staffs in a variety of settings. 

At 10 am, we headed to the south steps of the Capitol for a group photo.

We were showstoppers at the Capitol as the pharmacy professionals in white coats went inside the Capitol building to be recognized on the Texas Senate and House floors. Each chamber declared February 26, 2019 as Texas Pharmacy Day.

We then split into over 25 teams of 1 pharmacist and 1-3 students to meet with our legislators.  TPA did a fantastic job matching constituents and legislators.

Complementing the lobbying efforts was a student led health fair in the Capitol for legislators and their staff members. The students showcased pharmacy’s ability to provide patient-care services beyond dispensing, like point-of-care testing, health screenings, and other educational services.

Each lobbying team received a PACKET  with flyers on the value of pharmacists and issue briefs like the ones we shared last month. I was the team lead with 3 pharmacy students (Niobe of UNT and Zoe and Nick of TX Tech).  We met with our legislators from Dallas County  Representatives John Turner, Julie Johnson, Rafael Anchia and Senator Nathan Johnson and staff. We selected top 3 issues to discuss. The students were apprehensive at first, but once we started talking, they were terrific advocates for pharmacy. The issues we selected were PBM reform, Test and Treat and Furnishing Non-Diagnostic Meds. If we had the time, we also talked about E-scribing and checking PMPs for refills.

At the Jan and Feb DAPA meetings we discussed 9 pharmacy priority issues. The good thing is that 7 of these issues have been filed in the Senate and/or House.  Even better news is that 6 were forwarded to the appropriate committees. And the SB420 Pharmacists’ requirements to check PMP for refill prescriptions had a public hearing and is back as pending in committee. So things are moving much faster than they did in 2017.

Call to action:

• Check the status of these bills in TPA’s Advocacy Tracking site
• Advocate for bills impacting pharmacy
• be a resource to your TX Legislators
• Tell your story
• Renew/Join TPA

Advocacy Toolkit and  Issue Briefs
Presented to DAPA on 07 February 2019