Advocacy Successes
Physician Advocacy Successes
Good health policy is made with physicians in the discussion.
MSDC, working with its members, partners, and other organizations, has won major policy victories to help its members practice medicine. Below is a sampling of those victories. Do you want to be a vital part of the next policy victory helping improve the health of the District? Contact us today.
24th Council Period (2021-2022)
Opioid Policy
- MSDC was added to the opioid fund oversight panel by the Council in its legislation authorizing the oversight body
Scope of Practice
- MSDC supported legislation to ban the sale of flavored electronic smoking devices and restrict the sale of electronic smoking devices.
- Working with a coalition, MSDC added funding to the DC budget to support the hiring of more license specialists to help with the delay in processing medical licenses.
Women's Health
- B24-143, to regulate certified midwives, passed the Council with MSDC's support
23rd Council Period (2019-2020) [see update for entire Council period]
Health Equity
- Mayor Muriel Bowser signs into law the Electronic Medical Order for Scope of Treatment Registry Amendment Act of 2019. The eMOST Registry Amendment Act permits the creation of an electronic database of advanced directive wishes for District residents that can be tied into the health information exchange.
- Mayor Bowser signs into law the School Sunscreen Safety Temporary Amendment Act of 2019. The bill permits students to bring and apply sunscreen during the 2019-2020 school year.
- MSDC comments on the importance of funding United Medical Center (UMC) and health facilities in Wards 7 and 8 in the mayor's budget. Those comments are used almost verbatim in CM Trayon White's comments advocating for funding of United Medical Center.
Scope of Practice
- DC Health publishes draft regulations removing the 3 mandatory CME hours for HIV/AIDS awareness and replaces them with a requirement to fulfill 10% of mandatory CME hours with a topic from a public health priority list. DC Health then waived the requirement for 2020.
- The Strengthening Reproductive Health Protections Act of 2020 is signed into law with MSDC support. The bill prohibits government interference in reproductive decisions between a patient and doctor, and prohibits employers from penalizing physicians for practicing reproductive medicine outside of their work hours.
- The Mayor's Commission on Healthcare Systems Transformation releases its final recommendations. One recommendation is for the District to explore options to make providing health care more affordable, including financial relief for higher malpractice insurance rates.
- The Council removes "telephone" from the list of prohibited types of telemedicine to allow physicians and other providers to be reimbursed for telephone telemedicine appointments after MSDC and health community advocacy.
- MSDC worked with the Council to modify onerous language in the Health Care Reporting Amendment Act that potentially would have penalized physicians from seeking help for substance abuse or addiction issues.
Opioid/Drug Policy
- The Department of Health Care Finance (DHCF) waives prior authorization for key medication assisted treatments (MAT) treating substance use disorder patients in Medicaid.
- The Mayor signed into law The Access to Biosimilars Amendment Act of 2019, a top MSDC priority as it would help prescribers to prescribe more cost-effective drugs for patients.
Behavioral Health
- The Behavioral Health Parity Act of 2017, a major priority for MSDC and DCPA, officially becomes law. The legislation requires all health benefit plans offered by an insurance carrier to meet the federal requirements of the Wellstone/Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008.
22nd Council Period (2017-2018)
Health Equity
- The District Council passes B22-1001, The Health Insurance Marketplace Improvement Amendment Act of 2018. The bill prohibits the sale of Short Term, Limited Duration health plans and Association Health Plans (AHPs) in the DC Health Benefits Exchange.
Scope of Practice
- DC joins 28 other states in the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact with B22-177 becoming law. The IMLC is designed to ease physician licensure in multiple states.
Women's Health
- The Maternal Mortality Review Committee is established by law. The Committee is responsible for finding solutions to maternal health crisis in the District. District physicians are an important part of this vital committee.
- B22-106, The Defending Access to Women's Health Care Services Amendment Act, becomes law. The act requires insurers to cover health care services like breast cancer screening and STI screenings without cost-sharing.
21st Council Period (2015-2016)
Opioid Policy
- Right before the Council adjourned for the session, it passed B21-32, the Specialty Drug Copayment Limitation Act. The bill limits cost shifting by payers for prescription drugs.
Behavioral Health
- B21-0007 passes the Council. The Behavioral Health Coordination of Care Amendment Act of 2016 permitted the disclosing of mental health information between a mental health facility and the health professional caring for the patient.
Women's Health
- MSDC was proud to have worked on B21-20. The law requires payers to cover up to 12 months of prescription contraception, advancing women's health and equality.
Dr. Marchalik is Broadening the Minds of Medical Students through Humanities
Jun 24, 2022, 10:50 AM
by
Aimee O'Grady
Meet MSDC award winner, speaker, and volunteer Dr. Dan Marchalik
Marchalik with younger brother Josh
Dr. Daniel Marchalik has an incredible thirst for knowledge and understanding. This passionate reader grew up in a house full of books and with family members as enamored by a good story as he was. While he has enjoyed classics, today he prefers modern stories of magical realism.
Born and raised in Karelia, Russia on the banks of Lake Onega, between the White and Baltic seas, Dr. Marchalik compares his childhood that of many American children. “My mother was an internal medicine doctor, and my father worked in IT,” he shared. Although his brother is thirteen years his junior, the two are very close.
At age eleven, his family relocated to Minnesota to live near his aunt. “The cold was similar to Russia, but that may have been the only comparison,” he said. After only five years, the family moved again to East Brunswick, NJ, where they put down roots.
“My extended family is full of doctors,” said Dr. Marchalik. “It was more a question of whether I could be anything else, not if I wanted to pursue medicine,” he said of his career path. Medicine was an easy decision, but his specialty took a little longer. “Most physicians select their specialty during their third year of medical school, but it wasn’t until a few months into my fourth year that I chose urology. I was all over the map, but ultimately very happy with my choice,” he said.
While medicine may have been the clearest path for him, literature continued to call out. “I am a passionate reader. Everyone in my family enjoys reading,” he said. This bibliophile longed to study literature. “Reading is a wonderful experience that can transport the reader to other places and times,” he said. To Dr. Marchalik, a good book is simply one that cannot be put down.
His voracious appetite for literature led him to study this passion in tandem with medicine.
“During my last two years of residency, I began a graduate degree program in English Literature at Georgetown University,” he said. Although residency is known as a time-consuming and exhausting requirement for any physician, for Dr. Marchalik, his English Literature studies lessened the burden of residency. “It offered me an escape from medicine and challenged the other side of my brain,” he said.
Following his residency in 2016, Dr. Marchalik pitched an idea to the curriculum directors at Georgetown University School of Medicine. His proposal was a program that would re-center health in its broader social, cultural, and historical context. It also aligned with the school’s education mission that health practitioner cannot treat the whole patient without recognizing and valuing their humanity in its many facets. “I wanted to create the type of program that I wish I could have taken when I was a medical student. The idea was well-received, and we hit the ground running!” The Literature and Medicine Track has been offered at the Georgetown University School of Medicine for nearly a decade. Two years ago, Dr. Marchalik worked to introduce a similar program on Georgetown’s main campus focused on the Medical Humanities.
It is open to both pre-med and undergrad students with no interest in pursuing medicine and brings unique perspectives to every lecture. “This program allows us to engage a part of our brains that doesn't always get a chance to be stimulated during medical education,” he said. The classrooms, taught jointly by medical campus and main campus faculty, are filled with undergraduate and medical students sitting side-by-side. There is no other program like this in the United States.
But life isn’t only about the classroom and the hospital for this Renaissance doctor. Like so many other people, he used the pandemic to pick up a new hobby. Dr. Marchalik took up running. Running helped to combat isolation, community closures, and protect his own mental health.
But Dr. Marchalik doesn’t just run, he trains, and selects his races wisely. “I ran my first marathon in Paris last year,” he said. This year he is training for the Oslo, Norway marathon and will also run in his local D.C. Marine Corps Marathon. His training runs take him past significant D.C. monuments, onto the C&O Canal, the Mt. Vernon Trail, and Rock Creek Park where the hills provide him with a challenge the city doesn’t.
Running helps maintains a balance with each of his life’s endeavors; his passion for his Medical Humanities classes, providing top notch urology care for his patients, and volunteerism with MSDC.
“MSDC is incredible. Its membership and leaders are taking a serious approach to physical wellbeing.” Dr. Marchalik volunteers on the Wellbeing Task Force to help implement coaching programs for physicians and online access to programming. The members of this task force are committed to providing resources and support to District physicians in their struggle against burnout. They do this in part by providing coaching, counseling, networking, and best practice templates to combat moral injury and burnout.
At the end of the day, Dr. Marchalik enjoys a nice wine to accompany a delicious meal. “D.C. has an incredible food scene. There are so many options, they are never ending.” One of his favorite meals is sushi from Zeppelin DC with a nice, chilled sake.
Do you know a physician who should be profiled in the MSDC Spotlight Series? Submit a nomination to Robert Hay, hay@msdc.org, for a future story. MSDC membership is encouraged for featured physicians.