On May 25th a stakeholder’s meeting took place at the DC office of Congressman Larry Kissell, our bill sponsor, to review a recently completed draft of the bill. Since the start of the new Congress in January, his office has been working with the professional bill writers of Legislative Counsel to revise last year’s bill based on stakeholder input.
The organizations represented were: the American Cancer Society, American Physical Therapy Association, American Occupational Therapy Association, Oncology Nursing Society, National Breast Cancer Coalition, Lymphatic Research Foundation, National Lymphedema Network, Lymphology Association of North America, American Lymphedema Framework Project, North American Lymphedema Education Association and patient advocates from the Lymphedema Advocacy Group.
The draft will now be sent back to the bill writers for a final round of revision. There was excellent consensus amongst the stakeholders and Congressman Kissell plans to reintroduce the bill no later than July 1st. Although this process has been more time consuming than expected, the result will be a much stronger bill!
Heather Ferguson
