On March 27, 2025, ACCP’s Government Affairs office welcomed clinical pharmacists from the DC-Area College of Clinical Pharmacy for the Annual Capitol Hill Lobby Day. Thank you to our volunteer leaders from D.C., Maryland, and Virginia for making this exciting event possible! Building on our experience holding virtual lobby days during the pandemic, the 2025 event was made available to members as an in-person/virtual hybrid effort.

Our group was led by Lisa Peters, Pharm.D., clinical specialist pharmacist, Advanced Heart Failure and Heart Transplant at MedStar Washington Hospital Center. Peters received her Pharm.D. degree from the University of Michigan College of Pharmacy and completed her pharmacy practice residency at the Richmond Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Peters is a former president of the DC College of Clinical Pharmacy and has organized the DCCCP Advocacy Day on Capitol Hill for more than 10 years.

The DCCCP represents members from across the Washington metropolitan area, including the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia. On the Wednesday evening before the event, the group convened an online training and preparatory session to ensure all attendees were fully briefed.

The group then met in person on the first morning of the event at ACCP’s Washington, D.C., offices for an overview of ACCP’s advocacy platform, the current legislative environment, and the congressional lobbying process. Our group included student pharmacists from the Howard University and Virginia Commonwealth University schools of pharmacy. Putting our message of collaboration into advocacy practice, we were pleased to welcome Tiffany Tseng, Pharm.D., representing the Washington Metropolitan Society of Health-System Pharmacists.

From there, we made our way up Pennsylvania Avenue NW to enjoy lunch at the cafeteria in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill before meeting with Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD).

Although staff in these offices are already familiar with ACCP’s advocacy priorities, the importance of directly engaging these active ACCP members in the political process cannot be replicated, whether in D.C. or back home when Congress is in recess.

Consistent with ACCP’s advocacy priorities, our lobbying visits focused on ACCP’s efforts to establish Medicare coverage for comprehensive clinical pharmacy services as part of a broader reform of Medicare payment policy. In addition, we urged elected officials to cosponsor legislation to protect critical federal funding for pharmacy and nursing residency programs. The Rebuild America’s Health Care Schools Act of 2025 (S. 1087, H.R. 1708) would clarify the requirements that hospitals and health systems meet to receive Medicare reimbursement for operating health care residency programs and require CMS to cover ALL direct and indirect costs associated with the training of a nursing and allied health education participant—including pharmacy residents—incurred by a hospital participating program.

ACCP would like to thank the leadership of the DC Chapter for their hard work and commitment to ACCP’s advocacy agenda. Any ACCP Chapter or individual member interested in visiting Washington to lobby on Capitol Hill should contact our Washington office, where we can help facilitate and support your advocacy efforts.

Call to Action

Even if you can’t travel to Washington, D.C., to lobby on Capitol Hill, you can quickly write to Congress to urge support for our legislation to protect residency funding. ACCP has created a preformatted email template that allows you to automatically send a letter to your US senators and representative, based on your home address. This streamlined process ensures that it will take you less than 2 minutes to make a meaningful impact by expressing your views on this important issue. Click here to take action now!