As part of our partnership with the Amputee Coalition, aimed at providing easy access to Amputee Coalition materials and platforms, we also strive to keep you informed of the activities they support on behalf of their membership and the profession.

Every April is Limb Loss and Limb Difference Awareness Month and, this year, the Amputee Coalition hosted its virtual Advocacy Forum in April to educate advocates about policy issues important to the O&P community. Hundreds of attendees learned skills to engage their lawmakers about the Amputee Coalition’s advocacy priorities: securing funding for the National Limb Loss Resource Center and advancing the Triple A Study Act in Congress.

The National Limb Loss Resource Center provides support services for people living with limb loss or limb difference. This includes a dedicated helpline via phone, website and email, as well as a Certified Peer Visitor program that helps improve post-amputation health outcomes. The Resource Center also works with more than 400 support groups across the country and connects individuals with local, state and federal resources that help them live the life they want to live. National Limb Loss Research Center funding from Congress is critical in serving our community.

Another important policy area is expanding access to care, particularly to prosthetic devices. Two-thirds of people living with limb loss or limb difference never receive a prosthetic device, and there is little analysis to explain why. The bipartisan Triple A Study Act was re-introducedin Congress in April 2021 and calls for the Government Accountability Office to study barriers to care for assistive technologies, like prosthetic devices, and evaluate how those barriers affect patient outcomes by comparing results across Medicare, the VA and private insurers. The study also examines the affordability of devices, how often people are denied coverage and if patients can return to work.This is the first legislation introduced in Congress for people living with limb loss and limb difference since 2013. It has bipartisan sponsors in Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-NC-01) and Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY-02). The legislation has been introduced in the Senate as S.1089 and in the House as H.R. 2461.

Please ask your Members of Congress to co-sponsor this important legislation. You can learn more about these issues at amputee-coalition.org/advocacy.