CRT Stakeholders and Friends,

As we start the month of August we are going to be putting an extra push on for our CRT legislation and for general CRT awareness. We encourage all CRT stakeholders to take part! Let's start with an update on the CRT legislation. The "Ensuring Access to Quality Complex Rehabilitation Technology Act" continues to gain support. House bill HR-942 has 146 Representatives and Senate bill S-948 has 19 Senators.

Also, Steering Committee members met yesterday in Washington with the staff of our CRT sponsor offices (Senators Schumer and Cochran and Representatives Crowley and Sensenbrenner). We reviewed the status of our bills and discussed the strategy for the remainder of 2014. They stressed the benefit of securing more co-sponsors to elevate the bill in the eyes of Congressional leadership and the key committees. Depending on election results and what Congress takes on in terms of Medicare legislation in November/December, the next window of opportunity for our bill to be passed will be in the post-election period. So now is the time to follow up with Congressional offices that have not signed on yet and get them on board. With elections coming up it is a great opportunity to reach out to your Members.

That brings us to the August CRT Awareness Campaign. Members of Congress will be back in their hometowns for the August recess. With that in mind, the week of August 18th to 24th has been declared National CRT Awareness Week to shine a national spotlight on CRT and secure more support for the HR-942 and S-948. See the attached National CRT Week flyer for more details. If you can't connect the week of August 18th, make contact sometime during the month. The contact itself is far more important than the timing!

With your members home for the whole month, you can get to them in-person. No need to travel to Washington! We need CRT stakeholders to touch their Members and ask for the support of the CRT bill. You can't beat a face-to-face connection. In addition to National CRT Awareness Week, we will be sharing CRT facts, tips for talking with Congress, advocacy videos, and other valuable information relating to promoting CRT access throughout the month.

The best way to keep up to date on all this is to follow us on Facebook or Twitter. Just "like" our Facebook page or follow us on Twitter (@access2CRT). Then, look for the daily updates!

If social media isn't your forte, visit the educational materials section at www.access2crt.org to download and utilize the tools available.

Finally, for all you tweeters, we are going to be using #crtawareness as our August hashtag on Twitter. Please use this to communicate what you do during the month to promote CRT awareness and access.

Thanks for your continued support! As we move through August, share with us your own activities and results and we will then share with your fellow CRT stakeholders.

- Don

Donald E. Clayback
Executive Director NCART
716-839-9728 (office) | 716-913-4754 (cell)
[email protected] | www.ncart.us