ACG Advocacy Day 2026: Advocacy Takes Guts – Advancing Digestive Health

Dear ACG Colleagues and Friends,

On Thursday, more than 100 ACG leaders representing 46 states and 124 congressional districts came to Washington to make their voices heard. Across more than 200 meetings with House Representatives and Senators, our physician advocates delivered a clear message: gastroenterologists and their patients need Congress to act.

The highlight of the day was our annual luncheon, where five Members of Congress and two senior congressional staff offered candid perspectives on the current health policy landscape and how to best engage with Congress. We are grateful to all our speakers:

• Rep. Troy Carter (D-LA)

• Rep. Herb Conaway, MD (D-NJ)

• Rep. Maxine Dexter, MD (D-OR)

• Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX)

• Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, MD (R-IA)

• Amy Zhou (Rep. Kim Schrier, MD) and Catherine Hayes (Rep. Greg Murphy, MD), Staff Directors for the Democratic Doctors and GOP Doctors Caucuses respectively.

What struck us most about the luncheon was not just the breadth of perspectives in the room, but the consistency of one message across all of them: physician voices matter on Capitol Hill, and they are not heard nearly enough.

The legislators spoke directly to how much they rely on clinicians to help them understand how policies play out in the real world — in our endoscopy suites, in patient exam rooms, on the phone with insurers, and in rural communities where access to a gastroenterologist can be limited. Elected officials can read a policy brief. What they will never get from that brief is a physician sitting across from them or their staff and saying, ‘this is how my patients in your district are affected.’

On Thursday, our advocates experienced no partisanship on the Hill. There was only a shared, earnest conviction that if meaningful healthcare reform is ever going to move through Congress, physicians are the ones who will make it happen.

This Year’s Key Messages and Legislative Requests:

Prior Authorization and Step Therapy Reform. As ACG continues to say, insurers should not be practicing medicine. Step therapy requirements force patients to fail on alternative treatments before receiving the care their physician prescribed — delays that can worsen conditions and lead to preventable hospitalizations. We urged Members to cosponsor the bipartisan Safe Step Act (H.R. 5509 / S. 2903), which would create commonsense exemptions for patients who are stable on existing medications or where delay would cause harm.

The GI Physician Workforce Crisis. The United States is facing a physician shortage that will exceed 140,000 by 2038, with patients in rural communities bearing the greatest burden. This year, ACG added the SPARC Act (H.R. 4681 / S. 1380) — the Specialty Physicians Advancing Rural Care Act — to our legislative agenda. This bipartisan bill would expand loan repayment programs to specialty physicians serving rural areas, a resource that already exists for primary care.

Medicare Reimbursement. Annual cuts driven by an outdated budget neutrality requirement continue to threaten patient access and practice viability. New CMS efficiency adjustments implemented this year have compounded the problem. We asked House Members to cosponsor three bills — including the Provider Reimbursement Stability Act (H.R. 8163), the Strengthening
Medicare for Patients and Providers Act (H.R. 6160), and the Efficiency Adjustment Delay Act (H.R. 7520) — and urged Senate offices to pursue similar legislation.

Surveillance Colonoscopy as Preventive Care. Colorectal cancer is now the leading cause of cancer death in adults aged 20 to 49 — a sobering, tragic statistic that is also a preventable one. Patients with a personal history of polyps require more frequent colonoscopies, and those follow-up procedures should be covered as preventive care. A bipartisan group of 23 House Members signed an appropriations letter on this issue, and we are asking Congress to include the relevant language in this year’s Labor-HHS funding bill.

As we reflected at the close of the day, progress in Washington is rarely as fast as we’d like — but it is possible, and it is built one meeting and one conversation at a time. The groundwork laid by our advocates over years of consistent engagement is what opens doors, earns recognition from staff, and moves legislation forward. Your willingness to show up — to put a face and a story to the statistics, whether here in D.C. or by picking up the phone and calling your members of Congress — is what sets physician advocacy apart.

Thank you to ACG President William Chey, MD, MACG, to Legislative and Public Policy Council Chair Steve Amann, MD, FACG, to ECLP Co-Directors Andy Tau, MD, FACG and Judy Trieu, MD, as well as everyone who dedicated their time to the success of ACG’s 2026 Advocacy Day.

With gratitude,

Sita Chokhavatia, MD, MACG and Harish Gagneja, MD, MACG

---

Highlights from Lunch: Advocacy Takes Guts – Advancing Digestive Health

Clockwise, from top left: Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX); Rep. Troy Carter (D-LA); Rep. Maxine Dexter, MD (D-OR); Rep. Herb Conaway, MD (D-NJ); Dr. Ken Adams, ACG Governor for Iowa, Rep. Marianette Miller-Meeks, MD (R-IA) and LPPC Chair Dr. Steve Amann; Dr. Amann, Rep. Carter, ACG Trustee Dr. James Hobley

“I don’t want to hear from an algorithm — I want to hear from my doctor.”

– Rep. Troy Carter (D-LA)

“It was intimidating for me to come to Congress as a doctor. But your presence cannot be understated, because your advocacy here helps your patients get the highest quality care.”

– Rep. Marianette Miller-Meeks, MD (R-IA)

“The challenges facing GI right now are extreme, and I know that firsthand. Your representatives will remember that story about early colorectal cancer detection, but you couldn’t get the biopsy completed in time because of needless administrative hoops.”

– Rep. Maxine Dexter, MD (D-OR)

“You have more credibility here, sharing your experiences, than any member of Congress does. It’s powerful for us, powerful for the public, and powerful for your patients.”

– Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX)

---

Social Media Highlights – #ACGAdvocacyDay2026