Strengthening the VFC Act

Please take 2 minutes of your day, before the 4th of July, to contact your House representatives to let them know how important the Strengthening the Vaccines for Children Program Act is to the health of children in this country. Do it right now by following the 3 simple steps below, there’s nothing to it!

1. Log into https://federaladvocacy.aap.org. <— just click right there!
2. At the top of the page, look for “Support the Strengthening the Vaccines for Children Program Act.”
3. Click on the “TAKE ACTION” button. The AAP will then identify your Congressional rep and write your letter. Click on “SEND” and you are done.

Please, communicate to your government that children and those who serve them are important.

What is this legislation?

It’s a bipartisan bill, with real support, designed to make significant improvements to the VFC vaccine program. These improvements include:

• Providing incentive payments up to $10,000 for VFC participation over two years to cover costs like purchasing separate fridges or hosting parking lot vaccine clinics.
• Raising Medicaid vaccine administration payment to Medicare levels for two years and gives states an increased federal match to cover these costs.
• Extending eligibility to children enrolled in the Children’s Health Insurance Program, streamlining program administration.
• Ensuring Medicaid can pay appropriately for administration and counseling of modern, multicomponent vaccines.
• Allowing children to receive VFC vaccines in their medical home.
• Requiring new CDC reporting to identify disparities and pockets of low vaccination rates.

The positive financial impact of this bill on those who take care of our most vulnerable children is immense. To get paid Medicare rates on multicomponent vaccines for VFC vaccines would be the most important payment change in pediatrics since the creation of the multicomponent vaccines in the first place. We’re talking tens of thousands of dollars per physician for those who take Medicaid. Budget dust for everyone else, lifesaving manna for pediatric practices on the edge of viability. For more information on this bill, refer here.

What else can I do?

• TELL ALL YOUR FRIENDS.
• Please don’t forget to do this by July 4th.The timing of this messaging is important.
• If you have even the mildest relationship with your congressperson, adjust the letter on the AAP site (and included below) to personalize it.
• You can personalize the letter that the AAP prepares for you automatically right inside their application. It’s easy!
• If your office location is in a different district than your home, send a message to both representatives.
• If you prefer to email directly from your own account – which is awesome! – you can find your representative’s contact info by going here and providing your zip code. You might get an email address, you might get a form to complete, but the entire thing takes maybe a minute!

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