On December 5, ASAM participated in the Graduate Medical Education Advocacy Coalition’s Day of Action. First, the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC) held a briefing attended by Representatives Brad Schneider (D-IL), Susan Brooks (R-IN) and Phil Roe (R-TN) at which Dr. Scott Teitelbaum, a member of ASAM’s board of directors, discussed the pressing need to increase training opportunities for physicians to learn to treat substance use disorder and the disease of addiction. 

Then members of the Coalition met with legislators to encourage passage of the Opioid Workforce Act which was introduced by Brad Schneider (D-IL), Susan W. Brooks (R-IN), Annie Kuster (D-NH), and Elise Stefanik (R-NY) in the House and Senator Maggie Hassan (D-NH) and Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) in the Senate. The bill would provide federal funding to support 1,000 new training positions supported by Medicare in pain medicine, addiction medicine, addiction psychiatry, or related prerequisite residency programs. 500 of the training positions would be available to teaching hospitals with existing residency programs in any of the listed specialties, and 500 of the positions would be available to teaching hospitals looking to begin programs.

Read the Opioid Workforce Act here.