Dear AOPA member,

As part of the Congressional appropriations process for next year, AOPA is pushing hard to have resources allocated for outcomes-based research in orthotics and prosthetics.  We are supporting a request for $10 million for outcomes-based research to support evidence-based practice in each of the Departments of Defense, Veterans' Affairs, and National Institutes of Health research budgets.  We need your help to make this happen.

In March, each Congressional office (Senate and House) will write a letter to each of the Chairmen and Ranking Members of the ten appropriations subcommittees.  The letter will outline that Member of Congress's requests for that appropriations subcommittee.  Congressional offices will begin to assemble their priority lists during the month of February so they can be ready to meet the March request deadlines.  To push this evidence-based research initiative forward, we need to have as many Members of Congress as possible communicate to the leaders of the relevant appropriations subcommittees that this should be a priority.  That's where you come in.

We need you to contact your two Senators and your Representative no later than mid-February to request their support for these research funds.  To make this process as seamless as possible please click here to be directly linked to the O&P Appropriations Request campaign at Aopavotes.org.  Under the O&P Appropriations Request campaign you will find a draft letter that you can send to your Senators' and Representative's offices, explaining why evidence-based research is so important and asking your Members of Congress to include our requests in his or her appropriations priority letters.  You will also be able to customize the draft if desired.  All you need to do is enter your signature at the end of the letter, provide your name, e-mail and address and press send message.  The system will automatically locate your Senators and Representative based on your address information.  The entire process should take no more than a few minutes.  Please take those few minutes today to help make a difference for the O&P field tomorrow.

 For questions regarding the appropriations request, contact Catriona Macdonald, AOPA Policy Advisor, at 866-443-0998 or at [email protected].  If you need assistance with the AOPA Votes site please contact Catherine Graf at 571-431-0807 or at [email protected].