AUDIOLOGY ADVOCATE | Advocacy in the Time of COVID-19

This article is a part of the November/December 2020, Volume 32, Number 6,  Audiology Today issue.

The current pandemic has upended virtually all aspects of our lives: work, interaction with family and friends, schooling, travel, and finances. However, Congress and federal and state agencies have continued working under these extraordinary conditions to respond to the myriad of financial and health-care-related crises created by COVID-19.

The business of advocacy is typically a hands-on affair—characterized by in-person meetings with members of Congress and staff, fundraisers, coalition meetings, and travel to conferences and meetings. With the advent of COVID-19, these face-to-face activities came to a screeching halt. The disruption of these “typical” advocacy activities came at a time when it was more critical than ever before for the Academy, other associations, and industries to reach their elected officials and policy makers to express their concerns and share their ideas on how to address the health-care crisis. Our patients need access to non-COVID-19, yet critical, health-care services.

Lobbying by Zoom

Under usual circumstances, associations or other interest groups make donations from their political action committee (PAC) to various members of Congress or their campaigns and are able to meet with the members to gain actual “face time” to talk about issues of concern or to educate the members about their profession.

Believe it or not, even these fundraisers have shifted to Zoom events. The Academy has participated in several of them and staff have been able to express concerns directly to lawmakers, including Representative Frank Pallone (D-NJ), Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Senate Minority Leader.