AANP’s Busy Season Approaches

As we enter our busiest time, I invite YOU to be an active participant.

Is there someone you would like to see on the AANP Board of Directors? Nominate them! The election process is well underway—the Call for Nominations is out! Please submit them as soon as possible. April 28, 2013, is the deadline for submissions.

Our annual legislative pilgrimage to Washington, D.C., is May 12th through 14th. Would you like to give your input directly to your federal legislators? Are there federal policies you would like addressed? Come to the DC FLI (Federal Legislative Initiative) and speak to your congressperson or senator.

The AANP Conference, Walking Our Talk, is early this year. It starts July 10 in Keystone, Colorado! What ND friend would you like to spend time with? Invite them to share a condominium with you.

We are all involved in continuing to build a stronger, more effective national organization. When looking at the fitness of a patient I evaluate 3 areas: strength, flexibility and endurance.

The strength of the AANP is our members, our budget and the effectiveness of our teams and the projects they pursue. Our ability to build membership, coordinate our teams of volunteers to get stuff done and to get laws passed is another aspect of our strength. We want to build our strength by increasing our membership so that we can increase the amount of resources we can use for our projects.

The flexibility of the AANP is to a great extent about the leadership of the organization being able to assess the changing environment and adapting the work plan to grow the profession. Our Directors, Board committees and House of Delegates are attentive to the current challenges and opportunities and are communicating and working effectively with staff. We encourage you to get involved in these Board committees and in the House of Delegates. One emphasis this year is improving our public education and media affairs. One component of this is evolving our “Physicians Who Listen” to a more robust tagline. This involves updating our web presence with the ultimate goal of driving more patients to AANP members.

Naturopathic medicine has demonstrated endurance. Our profession continues to demonstrate strength and flexibility, but endurance is likely the most important. We have more licensed states than in the history of the profession. In this rapidly changing healthcare environment, we need to continue to identify our most promising points of leverage and apply our best ideas and energy to them. Currently, we are working to improve insurance coverage and practice opportunities in federal healthcare offerings. We are assisting states in expanding scope of practice and we are working with our state affiliates to increase the number of states where we can practice.

Michael Cronin, ND
AANP President