Tips for Successful Calls to Your Congressional Representatives
If you reach a staffer at a Congressional office, you might offer the following information:
- Identify yourself and provide a call-back number. If you have medical professional qualifications, then state them (i.e. “I am a board certified physician” or “I am a former nursing professional now disabled by agonizing pain.”
- If you are a resident of the Representative’s US State, say so (you don’t have to be a constituent to make your input).
- Tell the staffer that you want to report fraud and abuse to the Representative and to the House Congressional Oversight and Reform Committee.
- “I want the Committee to demand corrective action from the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, in the same way it did in 2015 when it directed CDC to re-open its proposed Opioid Guidelines to extended public review.”
- “AHRQ published a Comparative Outcomes Review on treatment of acute pain in December 2020. The Review is deliberately biased against the only therapies that work, deeply flawed by errors of scientific method, and outright fraudulent in its conclusions. This Review must be withdrawn for independent review and possible permanent repudiation.”
- Thank the staffer for their time. Ask “May I expect a callback from a member of the Representative’s staff?”