At a Glance.
Physician advocacy is a professional and ethical imperative that improves patient care, physician practice experience, and the healthcare system.
Engagement in policy reform helps ensure laws and regulations reflect clinical realities.
Physician advocacy has influenced issues such as prior authorization reform, reimbursement models, workforce wellness, and public health.
Advocacy is not extracurricular—think of it as medicine (in this case, healing a broken system) practiced on a broader scale.
The Case for Advocacy
Advocacy is not extracurricular; it is an extension of medicine’s ethical duty
The November/December issue of Missouri Medicine included the President’s Forum, an article from MSMA’s advocacy team, and the AMA report that all addressed various aspects of policy development and advocacy. It should go without saying that advocacy is critical to improving the health system for patients and physicians. Despite that, too many physicians either don’t recognize the importance or just haven’t found the right motivation to become involved in advocacy efforts at some level. This article is intended to address the importance of and encourage increased participation in healthcare advocacy.
Every practicing physician knows the frustration of working in a system that often impedes and impairs care. Prior authorization delays, coverage denials, and policy barriers too often define the patient and physician experience. Yet physicians hold the power to change these conditions. With that power comes an ethical duty to work to improve the system.
From expanding telehealth access during the pandemic to modernizing reimbursement policy, physician voices have been instrumental in shaping health reform that benefits both patients and physicians. Today, advocacy is not optional—it is central to the practice of medicine.
(L-R) Drs. Joe Corrado, Samer Cabbabe, David Barbe, and Edmond Cabbabe advocate for medicine during the annual Physician Advocacy Day at the Missouri Capitol.
What Physician Advocacy Means Today
Modern physician advocacy operates on multiple levels:
Individual: Securing appropriate care for a specific patient.
Institutional: Improving policies and practices within hospitals or practice groups.
Health Policy-Level: Influencing legislation and regulations that define and improve health care access and experience for patients and physicians.
Because we see firsthand how laws affect care, physicians bring authenticity and data-driven credibility to policy debates. The American Medical Association defines advocacy as “the physician’s duty to protect the health and rights of patients and communities.”1
In other words, improving healthcare through advocacy is part of who we are as professionals, not an accessory to clinical work.
Engaging in Policy Is a Professional Imperative
When physicians engage, healthcare becomes more humane, equitable, and effective
Physician advocacy stems from core medical ethics—beneficence, justice, and respect for persons. Our involvement in shaping healthcare policy helps ensure patient-centered care comes first. Healthcare, at its best, is both personal and systemic; improving one without the other is incomplete.
Policy engagement serves two overlapping missions:
For patients: Advocating equitable access, affordability, and quality.
For physicians: Protecting professional autonomy and building practice environments that support good medicine and economic sustainability.
Recent successes through organized advocacy on the part of physicians and our professional associations at the state and local levels underscore the importance. In the 2025 legislative session in Missouri alone, we achieved continuation of telehealth reimbursement, expanded GME funding, and additional loan repayment support.
Reforming prior authorization and reducing documentation burdens to reclaim clinical time is another area in which physician advocacy improves patient care and physician well-being.
A Powerful Case in Point
Physicians must help design the healthcare system, not merely endure it
MSMA has successfully advanced laws limiting insurer delays in prior authorization. Physician testimony and persistent MSMA advocacy—anchored in examples of patient harm—proved decisive in persuading legislators. It demonstrates the best of advocacy: stories backed by evidence, delivered by trusted professionals. That is good for patients and good for physicians.
These outcomes occurred because informed physicians explained how real policies impact real patients. When the medical profession remains silent, those with less understanding of clinical consequence shape the rules that govern care.
Effective Advocacy is Built on Relationships
There are multiple channels for effective advocacy, but they are all based on relationships. The most direct and personal advocacy comes through developing a relationship with your state legislators. Look for or make opportunities to meet them at fundraisers and other events in your area. Legislators genuinely want to hear their constituents’ opinions. Those contacts, coupled with campaign contributions, build a relationship that strengthens your impact when an important advocacy issue arises.
Relationships with your local medical society and MSMA are also important. Membership strengthens the association, making its organized advocacy efforts more effective. Contributions to the Missouri Medical Political Action Committee help support candidates and legislators that have been favorable to medicine’s issues.
Barriers to Engagement—and How to Overcome Them
Even physicians who know the importance of advocacy often hesitate to participate. Common barriers include:
Time pressure and burnout
Limited familiarity with policy processes
Institutional or administrative disincentives
Yet solutions exist. Joining professional associations such as the MSMA, AMA, and your specialty society (yes, you need to be members of all of them!) reduces the personal burden of engagement by leveraging organized resources and strategy. The MSMA, AMA, and some other societies now offer advocacy toolkits, policy briefings, and CME modules tailored for busy physicians.
Institutions also share responsibility. Hospitals and health systems should recognize advocacy as integral to professionalism, safeguarding time for participation and celebrating physician engagement as a sign of leadership. We need to work with relevant hospital and health system leadership to make it easier for physicians to participate in advocacy, especially on mutually beneficial policies.
Looking Forward: Building Advocacy into the Profession’s Future
Sustained change requires nurturing advocacy skills in future generations. Medical schools and residency programs increasingly integrate coursework on health policy, advocacy, and leadership. Physician mentors play a crucial role in guiding students, residents, and young physicians to become involved in advocacy. Make an effort to include them in your metropolitan, county, and MSMA advocacy activities.
Meanwhile, technology is accelerating advocacy’s reach. Virtual legislative visits, digital coalitions, and thoughtful use of social media allow physicians to shape debates more effectively than ever.
Ultimately, successful advocacy demands a culture shift: seeing systemic reform as an extension of patient care. When physicians bring the same rigor and compassion to policymaking that they bring to clinical medicine, the entire system improves.
Conclusion
Advocacy is medicine practiced on a broader scale—healing systems, not just symptoms
Physicians remain the conscience of healthcare—witnesses to both its achievements and its inequities. Advocacy is the means by which that conscience acts.
Engaging in policy development and implementation protects patients, strengthens clinical practice, and ensures medicine retains its humane and evidence-based character. The choice facing the profession is simple: shape the system—or be shaped by it.
Whether by participating in MSMA/MAOPS Advocacy Day, national advocacy conferences, supporting individual candidates, or supporting legislative outreach through the MSMA, AMA, or other professional associations, every physician’s involvement matters.
Your involvement matters! Be a part of shaping the change you want to see for your patients, your practice, and the health system. Advocacy is medicine practiced on a broader scale—healing systems, not just symptoms.
Footnotes
David O. Barbe, MD, MHA, is former president of the Missouri State Medical Association, the American Medical Association, and the World Medical Association. He is on the Missouri Medicine Editorial Board for Physician Advocacy. He practices Family Medicine at Missouri State University Care Clinic, in Springfield, Missouri, USA.
References
- 1.American Medical Association. Education and advocacy: Professional responsibility of physicians. AMA Code of Medical Ethics Opinion 1.2.11. [Accessed August 2024]. https://code-medical-ethics.ama-assn.org .