Grassroots advocacy

The AMA continues to work to clear roadblocks to improve the nation’s health and empower our growing base of physicians, residents and medical student activists. Learn to influence and help policymakers take appropriate action on medicine’s most important issues.

No one is more qualified to help guide members of Congress as they create, debate and enact health care legislation than those who deliver quality care to patients every day. The Physicians Grassroots Network connects physicians from across the country and empowers them to advocate for smarter solutions to our nation’s health care challenges.

Join the AMA's Physicians Grassroots Network to stay up to date on legislative and regulatory issues impacting medicine.

More than 1.5 million patient activists have joined the Patients' Action Network, which began in 2004 in response to legislative issues that the AMA feared would harm the patient-doctor relationship and restrict patients’ access to health care.

The Patients' Action Network enables our growing base of patients to take appropriate action on important health care issues. View stories from doctors and patients across the country and share your own experiences. Understand issues affecting patients and make your voice heard in Washington, D.C. Visit the Patients' Action Network.

Every year, physicians and their spouses seek public office or work on campaigns to elect friends of medicine to offices across the country. To confront challenges to providing the best care for their patients, physicians realize that involvement in the political process is no longer optional.

The AMA’s Political Action Committee (AMPAC) Political Education Programs provide politically-minded physicians with the tools they need to run effective campaigns. Learn about AMPAC’s Campaign School and AMPAC's Candidate Workshop.

The AMA has developed the Very Influential Physician (VIP) grassroots program to help physicians, residents and medical students take on a leadership role in grassroots activities and to build and leverage the contacts they have with their elected officials to advance our shared agenda on Capitol Hill.

If you have a relationship with a member of Congress or their staff, whether it’s a personal friendship, serving as a campaign volunteer or working together in a professional capacity, and your aim is to develop a better relationship with them, we want to help you in this process and enable you to maximize the value of these key contacts.

Together with other AMA VIPs, you will have the opportunity to personally educate and engage members of Congress on issues important to organized medicine. You are a trusted source to them and, as an authority on health care, they will listen to what you have to say.

As a Very Influential Physician, you can have great impact on forming health care-related legislation and educating members of Congress on issues that matter to the AMA.

Questions about the VIP program? Contact the AMA's office of Political and Legislative Grassroots at (202) 789-7466.

AMA's guide to communicating with Congress (PDF) helps physicians, residents and medical students navigate and cultivate relationships on Capitol Hill.