First, thank you to everyone that advocated for H.R. 2144/S. 1450, the “Access to Genetic Counselor Service Act” in 2021. You are making a difference as demonstrated by H.R. 6000, the “CURES 2.0 Act,” which includes language on genetic counselors.
Work has begun to expand the “CURES 2.0 Act” language that would allow genetic counselors to provide pharmacogenetic consults to Medicare beneficiaries. We have an opportunity over the next several months to expand Section 408 of the bill to incorporate the text of H.R. 2144.
A primary goal of the CURES 2.0 legislation is to ensure health care innovation reaches patients. There is no better way to ensure that appropriate and innovative genetic testing reaches Medicare patients than to add genetic counselors to the Medicare program. While Medicare covers genetic counseling, it does not recognize genetic counselors as providers, which creates an access and quality barrier.
Once Congress adds genetic counselors to the Medicare program, they will be able to serve Medicare beneficiaries on par with other patients they serve. Medicare reimbursement to genetic counselors should also allow more employers to hire genetic counselors and make it easier for them to set up private practices. This will increase access to genetic counselors for all and ensure the innovation of genetic services can apply broadly, and at a high quality.
An immediate priority for NSGC and its members is to continue to increase Democratic and Republican cosponsors of H.R. 2144. Currently, the bill has 32 in the U.S. House of Representatives and the list continues to grow. The current cosponsor list can be found HERE. If your representative is not yet a cosponsor, please send an email to advocacy@nsgc.org and the NSGC Advocacy team will be happy to set up a virtual meeting with your representative’s office. We held over 150 of these meetings in the past year. They have a huge impact on raising awareness of the importance of this issue on Capitol Hill and have helped secure many of the current cosponsors.
NSGC PAC
The year 2022 is an election year, and the entire U.S. House of Representatives and a third of the U.S. Senate are up for reelection. While NSGC cannot directly support candidates for Congress, the NSGC PAC is a way to help elect candidates who support and are interested in the genetic counselor profession.
Only NSGC members can donate to the NSGC PAC. The PAC allows us to have direct contact with candidates to educate them about the importance of policy that affects the profession. These conversations have a significant impact on making these policymakers aware of how they can support policies that would improve access to genetic counselors.
Today, we are very limited in the number of candidates we can support as the PAC has only raised about $15,000 to date. Drawing on our collective efforts, the NSGC PAC was founded as a mechanism to pool our donations specifically toward politicians who understand the importance of expanding access to genetic counselors. We would like to see the PAC continue to grow. Our goal is for 1,000 NSGC members to donate $50 each. This would allow us to have a much greater impact. Larger and smaller donations are always welcome, too. The NSGC leadership certainly appreciates any support you can lend. You can go to the NSGC PAC website to donate HERE.
NSGC Headquarters promotes the professional interests of genetic counselors and provides a network for professional communications. Access to continuing education opportunities, professional resources, advocacy and the discussion of all issues relevant to human genetics and the genetic counseling profession are an integral part of belonging to the NSGC.