MMA/MOA Legislative Committee Planning:

It is said that “all politics is local” and so is Advocacy!! We will be participating in the MMA/MOA’s Legislative planning meeting on December 14th to help prioritize the advocacy efforts for the upcoming Maine Legislature’s Session in 2024. If there are specific health related issues or proposed bills you would like us to focus on, please contact MAFP President, Sue Cheff MD at maineafp@tdstelme.net

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Investing in Primary Care:

We have been participating in the “Primary Care Investment Network” with other AAFP state chapter representatives. The goal of this group is for state chapters to support each other in increasing primary care investment and payment throughout the country. So far, they have been sharing what other states are doing or are planning on doing to increase investment in primary care. By participating in this group, the MAFP will gather ideas and see what we can do here in Maine to improve investment in our specialty. Anyone interested in being involved in this initiative, please contact the MAFP office at maineafp@tdstelme.net

Resource: AAFP PCI TOOLKIT

"1000 Lives in Maine" Initiative:

We have signed on to the MMA’s “1000 Lives in Maine” initiative. 1000 Lives is an initiative for physicians, healthcare providers and healthcare systems to take collective efforts to prevent 1000 overdose deaths in Maine from 2024-2029.

The initiative was announced at the Governor’s Opioid Summit in July 2023. Watch for more to come on this initiative as it progresses.

The Health Equity Committee made recommendations to the MAFP Board regarding caring for transgender and gender nonbinary patients. They drafted a statement which the MAFP Board voted to adopt. Read the statement on our website HERE

The Health Equity Committee also wanted to make all members aware of the “AAFP Policy on Reproductive Decisions” and has posted it on our website HERE

If any MAFP Member has an interest or ideas in ways we can advocate further for these populations, please reach out to Health Equity Committee Chair, Marco Cornelio MD

MAFP 32nd Annual Family Medicine Update - 2024

The committee is actively working on recruiting speakers for our next annual update on April 4-6, 2024 in Portland. If you have suggestions for specific topics or specific speakers, please reach out to Deborah at maineafp@tdstelme.net and she will pass them on to the Education Committee. The Committee has almost completed Topic/Speaker selection process. The final conference schedule should be complete by December and registration available on line in January.

Our goal for future conferences is to return to alternating venues in different parts of the state to make it equitable for all members to attend. We had planned to be in Bangor in 2024 but our venue will be under renovations during that time. So, we decided to have the conference in Portland in 2024 and then be in Bangor in 2025.

FMX is in Chicago THIS WEEK - October 26-29!

Look out for a social event that the MAFP Board will be sponsoring during the conference. All Maine members who are registered will receive an email before Oct 25^th with the invitation – so check your email!

Find out all about FMX HERE

If you are considering attending FMX in 2024, please consider arriving before Monday evening, September 23 to attend portions of the Congress of Delegates. 

As Maine plans to run a candidate for the national Board of Directors, we need as many Maine AFP members (and guests) as possible to help at the Hospitality reception Monday Evening. 

Teaser: There likely will be cool shirts for the campaign team! Election results will be announced at the Wednesday morning session of the Congress, so please plan to attend. AAFP members must register separately (no charge) to attend the Congress. Guests are welcome to attend the Hospitality reception.

Less than a month remains to help build the first-ever family medicine career benchmark dashboard. This one-of-a-kind resource promises to revolutionize AAFP members’ ability to find jobs that recognize their value, pay them what they’re worth, and offer the work/life balance they deserve. But members only have until November 10 to complete the AAFP survey to share data about their salary, benefits and working conditions, with the dashboard scheduled to launch on Dec. 15.

So far we've had 16.42% of our Active Members here in Maine complete the Benchmark Survey!

Maine AFP is in 3rd place for Medium Chapters (out of 17 Medium sized) - behind Montana & Nebraska. If you haven't completed yours yet, please consider taking the short survey today.

COMPLETE SURVEY HERE