• Medicare and Medicaid coding and payment coverage of O&P; VA access issues; research funding; quality of patient care; O&P access; Medicare O&P Patient Centered Care Act; essential benefits; Medicare physician documentation; ACA implementation; Medicare Audit and Appeals Legislation; prior authorization regulations and off-the-shelf orthotics; TCET legislation; appropriations funding for the orthotics and prosthetics outcome research program under DOD.

Duration: August 14, 2007 to present

General Issues: Health Issues, Medicare/Medicaid

Spending: about $1,280,000 (But it's complicated. Here's why.)

It can be tricky to figure out how much an organization spent on a particular lobbying engagement. The law only requires lobbyists to report the amount they were paid for federal lobbying each quarter rounded to the nearest $10,000—and if it's less than $3,000 in a given quarter (or less than $13,000 for organizations with in-house lobbyists), they don't have to disclose it at all. Plus, some organizations include spending that doesn’t belong in the report—for instance, money spent lobbying state governments or other legal work.

Agencies lobbied since 2007: U.S. Senate, House of Representatives, Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Health & Human Services - Dept of (HHS), Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Health & Human Services - Dept of (HHS), Veterans Affairs - Dept of (VA), Natl Institutes of Health (NIH)

Affiliated organizations: AAOP; ABC; AOPA