Emergency Physician State Legislators: Advocacy is Good, Power is Better
Physicians & State Representatives Tim Reeder (R-NC), Arvind Venkat (D-PA), and Amish Shah (D-AZ) are running for office in 2024. EM's representation in government matters.
When the North Carolina General Assembly makes news, we expect it to be over abortion, bathrooms, or partisan power squabbles.
In contrast, Tim Reeder, MD, MPH, a Republican emergency physician in the NC House of Representatives, focuses on issues that matter most to the state’s physicians, their patients, and their communities. The same can be said of the impressive legislative records of Amish Shah, MD, MPH (D-Arizona) and Arvind Venkat, MD, FACEP (D-Pennsylvania). Let’s explore the impact of these three emergency physician legislators.
North Carolina Representative Timothy J. Reeder, MD, MPH
Dr. Tim Reeder is an accomplished emergency physician leader. Prior to winning North Carolina’s 9th House District election in 2022, Reeder was Chief of the Medical Staff at ECU Medical Center in Greenville, NC. Before that, Dr. Reeder had been President of the North Carolina Medical Society. While in office, Tim continues to work weekend emergency department shifts and is the ECU ED’s Vice Chair for Clinical Operations.
Though only a freshman lawmaker, Reeder has co-sponsored 58 bills, 21 of which he was the primary sponsor.
His signature legislative accomplishment has been the passage of The Hospital Violence Protection Act of 2023 (HB809). The bill mandates that every hospital in North Carolina “that has an emergency department shall conduct a security risk assessment and develop and implement a security plan with protocols to ensure that at least one law enforcement officer is present at all times in the emergency department or on the same campus as the emergency department.”
Per Dr. Reeder, medical professionals are “four times more likely to experience violence at work compared with other industries. Violence occurs throughout the hospital, but it is disproportionate in emergency departments. As a practicing emergency physician, I have personally experienced verbal and physical towards me in the emergency department.
The negative impacts of the rising levels of violence are being felt throughout the medical community. High levels of burnout are contributing to the worrisome workforce shortage in the medical field, causing patients to suffer.”
In a January 2024 poll of American College of Emergency Physicians members, 91% said that they or a colleague was a victim of violence in the past year. Approximately 70% of emergency nurses report being hit and kicked while on the job.
In an NC Health News article, David McDonald, president of the North Carolina Emergency Nurses Association, said he is encouraged that the new law focuses on prevention rather than just tougher penalties for offenders.
“We are pushing hard on the prevention side to keep nurses from being assaulted in the first place,” he said.
Dr. Reeder is running for re-election with the tagline, “Treatment for a Better North Carolina.” His campaign website: https://www.drtimreeder.com
Pennsylvania Representative Arvind Venkat, MD, FACEP
Dr. Arvind Venkat has a jaw-dropping biography of successes. He graduated from Harvard University in 1996 with both a Bachelor and a Master degree in the History of Science. After attending the Yale School of Medicine, he completed an emergency medicine residency at the prestigious University of Cincinnati program. In 2019, he was elected President of the Pennsylvania College of Emergency Physicians followed by being elected member of the ACEP Board of Directors in 2020. Dr. Venkat still practices clinical emergency medicine with US Acute Care Solutions.
Representative Venkat was motivated to run for office in 2022 to heal the divisions he saw during the COVID pandemic. In an ACEPNow interview, he explained, “What really motivated me to run was seeing over the course of the two or three years at the height of the pandemic how divided we were and how we needed more people with perspectives from health care and science in the political arena to be able to inform public policy. I very much focused on investment in our first responders and making health care more affordable and accessible because we saw during the height of the pandemic how challenged that was.”
Much like Dr. Tim Reeder in North Carolina, Venkat’s freshman term in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives has been prolific. Venkat sponsored or co-sponsored 30 bills, including legislation to erase nearly $400 million in medical debt for Pennsylvanians.
The bill most impactful to the emergency medicine workforce is Venkat’s H.B. 1633, “An Act prohibiting the enforcement of certain non-compete covenants entered into by health care practitioners and employers.” H.B. 1633 would ban non-compete agreements for Pennsylvania’s healthcare practitioners, except those practicing in the state’s most rural areas.
The healthcare practitioner non-compete limit bill passed the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in April 2024 by a bipartisan vote of 150 - 50. The legislation has now moved to the Pennsylvania Senate.
In an interview with WESA, Dr. Venkat explained that non-competes send the message that patients are owned by hospitals and health systems. “As a physician-legislator,” Venkat said, “I know that non-compete covenants unnecessarily restrict patient access to the clinician of their choice and make Pennsylvania a less desirable place for health professionals to practice.”
Though the Federal Trade Commission voted on April 23, 2024, to ban non-compete agreements throughout the United States, the Pennsylvania legislation is still important for two reasons. First, the FTC rule only applies to entities “organized to carry on business for its own profit or that of its members.” Some or all non-profit health systems will likely be exempt from the FTC ban. Second, lawsuits have been filed to block the FTC’s non-compete ban from going into effect.
Dr. Venkat is running for re-election in 2024 to continue representing Pennsylvania’s District 30. Venkat’s campaign slogan is “Caring for and protecting our communities.” His campaign website: https://www.venkatforpa.com
Arizona Representative Amish Shah, MD, MPH
Dr. Amish Shah is yet another impressive emergency physician legislator. After three successful terms in the Arizona House of Representatives, Shah is running for the US House in 2024. The Democratic primary for Arizona’s 1st Congressional District is on July 30.
Born in Chicago, Dr. Shah attended Northwestern for his undergraduate and medical studies, followed by an MPH from the University of California at Berkeley. Shah practiced at Mount Sinai Health System in New York and completed the University of Arizona’s Sports Medicine fellowship.
In his five years in the Arizona legislature, Shah passed more bills than any Arizona Democrat in a decade. Three are worth highlighting.
Dr. Shah is perhaps best known for his work supporting “Jake’s Law”, which included suicide prevention and substance use treatment funding, insurance transparency mandates, and increased youth access to mental healthcare. Jake’s Law was signed by Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey in 2020.
The American Psychiatric Association awarded Representative Shah the Jacob Javits Award for Public Service. “Not only in hospitals but also in the Arizona House of Representatives, Dr. Shah has left his mark as a distinctly skilled and dedicated voice for mental health,” said APA President Petros Levounis, M.D., M.A. “His tireless efforts include working across the aisle to pass legislation like ‘Jake’s Law,’ promoting important mental health interventions such asthe Collaborative Care Model, and advocating for youth to more easily access mental health care services.”
In 2021, Representative Shah sponsored H.B. 2622 to prevent Arizona’s healthcare employers from retaliating against clinicians who make a report “in good faith concerning an activity, policy or practice that the health professional reasonably believes both: 1. Violates professional standards of practice or is against the law. 2. Poses a substantial risk to the health, safety, or welfare of a patient.”
Shah’s legislation extended these protections to clinicians who work for third parties like staffing firms, not only those employed directly by a health system. The law, which was signed by the Arizona governor in March 2021, includes a “rebuttal presumption”, meaning that healthcare professionals who disclose unsafe conditions in a healthcare facility have significant protections from termination for six months.
In 2022, Dr. Shah sponsored a healthcare worker safety bill, H.B. 2635. The law, which was signed by the Arizona governor in June 2022, “directs healthcare employers to develop, implement, and maintain a written workplace violence prevention plan.”
Dr. Amish Shah’s US congressional campaign website: https://www.amishforarizona.com
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