Why Is Advocacy Essential?
The Society of Thoracic Surgeons is the only organization in Washington, DC, specifically dedicated to representing the interests of cardiothoracic surgeons and their patients.
Through decades of advocacy, STS has helped guide policymakers on key challenges created by the rapidly evolving health care environment. Our relentless efforts ensure that the interests of STS members and their patients are effectively represented before influential entities such as the US Congress, federal agencies, and various healthcare coalitions.
How to Get Involved
STS members can easily contact their legislators about pressing issues through the new STS grassroots advocacy site. Log in to read about key issues, locate your elected officials, and send personalized messages about the causes that concern cardiothoracic surgeons and their patients.
STS's 2025 Advocacy Priorities
- Reform Medicare Payments: Urge policymakers to enact significant reforms that promote predictable and sustainable reimbursement.
- Secure Coverage and Reimbursement: Work with payors and stakeholders to ensure that cardiothoracic procedures are covered and reimbursed appropriately.
- Make Telehealth Permanent: Collaborate with stakeholders to retain flexibilities beyond 2025.
- Reduce Administrative Burdens: Reform prior authorization requirements that impede access to care.
- Advocate for Effective Medicare Payment Models: Maximize cardiothoracic surgeon participation in value-based payment models and ensure appropriate measurement.
- Advance the STS Mobile Lung Cancer Screening Initiative: Advocate for funding and resources to support mobile lung cancer screening programs, to increase access to early detection and ensure appropriate treatment of lung cancer in rural and underserved communities.
- Maintain Preventative Coverage: Ensure coverage of lung cancer screening based on the best evidence available without administrative hurdles like prior authorization or no cost-sharing for patients.
- Foster Collaboration: Ensure that Medicare coverage requires a cardiothoracic surgeon’s involvement on the heart team for patient selection and procedures.
- Advance Access to Innovative Treatments: Highlight the critical role of CT surgeons in ensuring patient access to cutting-edge therapies while upholding the highest standards of safety.
- Streamline Access to Out-of-State Specialized Care: Promote expedited patient access to highly specialized care across state lines for Medicaid beneficiaries.
- Promote Research Impacting Congenital Patients: Fund targeted research into pre-term births that contribute to neonatal cardiac diseases, pulmonary hypertension, and more.
- Invest in Training Cardiothoracic Surgeons: Support raising the cap on Medicare-supported residency positions and providing support for surgeons in training.
- End Physician Non-Compete Agreements: Protect policies that end non-compete agreements and prohibit artificial barriers for employed physicians.
- Improve Physician Wellness: Promote programs that foster resiliency and reduce burnout.
- Secure Access to Claims Data: Enable clinician-led registries to utilize federal claims data for assessing care quality, efficacy, and accelerating patient access to innovative treatments.
- Illustrate the Benefits of Real-World Evidence: Use the ACC/STS TVT Registry™ to demonstrate the positive impact of real-world data on policy decisions and Coverage with Evidence Development.
Key Issues
Active engagement and involvement by STS members at the grassroots level is crucial for the collective success of cardiothoracic surgery.
STS-PAC
STS-PAC is the only political action committee that exclusively represents and fights for cardiothoracic surgeons and their patients in Washington, D.C.
When STS members* contribute to the PAC, the STS-PAC Board of Advisors approves support in a nonpartisan way for candidates and elected officials based on their advocacy priorities, roles on committees of jurisdiction, and relationships with STS members. When pro-cardiothoracic surgery candidates win elections, they bolster the presence of our allies on Capitol Hill and help advance STS priorities.
* Contributions to STS-PAC are voluntary and not tax deductible for federal income tax purposes. You have the right to decline to contribute without any reprisal against your STS membership. Your contribution must be made using a credit card, check or money order, and must be drawn on a personal account to be used to support federal candidates. You must be a US citizen or lawfully admitted permanent US resident to contribute. Federal law requires us to use our best efforts to collect and report the name, mailing address, occupation and name of employer of each individual whose contributions exceed $200 in a calendar year. Federal law prohibits STS and STS-PAC from soliciting contributions from persons outside STS’s restricted class. STS’s restricted class includes individuals who are dues paying members or non-dues paying members with voting rights, and who are US citizens or lawfully admitted permanent US residents.