Using social media is a great way to keep issues like physician reimbursement and prior authorization in front of policymakers year-round. Whether you participate in Mid-Year Forum and Congressional Advocacy Day or simply want to advocate from the comfort of your home, your online engagement is powerful in building broad support for our top advocacy priorities.
With the launch of the Academy’s new @eyeadvocacy X account, now is the perfect time to learn best practices for engaging with and amplifying ophthalmology's stories online.
Get Started
When engaging with legislators on platforms like X and Instagram:
- Follow: @eyeadvocacy from your personal X account.
- Tag: Mention or tag the legislator you are talking about making sure to use the correct account. Many elected officials have old campaign accounts still active. Double check that the handle has rep or sen before the name to ensure its an official congressional account.
Examples: @RepDelBene
@SenSchumer
- Thank: Thank them and/or their staff for meeting with you.
- Restate: Restate the main theme or request made during your visit, e.g., “I look forward to working with you on prior authorization reform.”
- Reshare: If you shared a story from your practice, refer back to it. “Thank you for listening to how the Medicare physician fee cut has affected my patients and me. I really appreciated your concern.”
- Photograph: Don’t be afraid to take pictures and share any photos you took on your channels.
- Multiply and Repeat: Consider sharing about the encounter on multiple channels. In addition to X, many legislators also maintain accounts on Facebook and Instagram.
Find Your Congressional Representative
Don't know who your legislator is? Use the Find Your Legislator tool to find your elected officials.
Legislators aren’t the only audience for online advocacy, however. Appropriate online sharing about how a particular issue affects you and your patients could also reach:
- Journalists looking for stories to tell and ways to write about an issue
- Peers who might be open to doing more advocacy if they had some good examples
- Health care and regulatory officials who monitor online conversations as a way to informally track issues and concerns
- Insurers and their staff who could possibly escalate concerns internally. Many companies have staff dedicated to monitoring online conversations. In some cases, they may also offer customer service. Make sure you’re talking to an official account or authorized representative.
Organizational Blogs and LinkedIn
Write about issues impacting ophthalmology and your patients on your organization’s or facility’s blog or LinkedIn page. Blog articles should be around 250 words in length and include photos, videos and/or hyperlinks to relevant websites or documents so viewers can learn more. Don’t just ask for support. Explain why your audience’s support matters to your issue.
Engage With Fellow Stakeholders
We’re all part of this fight. If you see one of your members or colleagues or fellow organizations engaging on this issue on social media, click on the thumbs-up or heart buttons to "like" their messages. Better yet, share or retweet their messages to your own followers. This will help expand our reach as we seek to spread our message to a fresh audience.
Other Ways to Take Action
Write your federal or state lawmakers. The Academy’s online tool provides you with prewritten letters that you can email your lawmakers on issues critical to our profession. To make it even easier to take action, the online tool also allows you to tweet at your members of Congress.
Questions?
Contact Dash Delan (ddelan@aao.org), the Academy’s grassroots specialist, with questions or concerns.