Health policy · 2021 to 2026

Patients and local providers in the room with Congress

Five years of Georgia roundtables that put patients, caregivers, and local providers in front of House and Senate offices, backed by letters to the editor and written follow-up.

The situation

A national health-policy group was arguing over access to care and how it is paid for. It needed a perspective that policy papers cannot supply: what these decisions mean for a family, a caregiver, or a local provider keeping a community practice open. It also needed those Georgians to stay involved for years, while bills, hearings, and committee calendars kept moving.

What we did

Recruited Georgia patients, caregivers, independent local providers, and a small-business owner, starting with personal contact and keeping those relationships warm from one year to the next.
Coached each participant before every meeting to describe their own experience clearly and briefly.
Moderated the roundtables, wrote down the questions offices asked and what they still needed, and followed up on each item.
Placed letters to the editor in the Gwinnett Daily Post and the Marietta Daily Journal.
Built a library of personalized letters to Georgia's House and Senate delegation that covers both state and federal proposals.
Sent thank-you letters after meetings and kept the Georgia work in step with the national field team as congressional timelines shifted.
Documented every discussion for the client team, with a detailed written report after the 2026 roundtable.

What it produced

Ten documented discussions with House and Senate offices between 2021 and 2026, reaching both of Georgia's U.S. Senators' offices and House members from both parties.
Four or five advocates in each session where group size was recorded, bringing patient, caregiver, provider, and business perspectives into one conversation.
Letters to the editor in the Gwinnett Daily Post and the Marietta Daily Journal.
A library of personalized letters to Georgia's delegation covering both state and federal proposals, with recruiting continuing through 2023.
Follow-through after meetings: thank-you letters, a running list of each office's questions, and a detailed written report after the April 2026 roundtable with a Senate legislative assistant.
Specific questions for continued follow-up after the 2024 sessions, and four separate offices heard from participants in 2025.

What local people added

A policy paper says what a rule does. A caregiver or a local provider can say what it did to them, and an office can ask a follow-up question on the spot. After the 2024 sessions, offices had specific questions to pursue. In 2025, staff in four offices heard local concerns and asked detailed questions.

Putting patients and independent providers in the same conversation showed both sides of one issue at once. And because the same kind of participants stayed involved across several offices and several points in each legislative year, no single meeting had to carry the whole effort.

A program like this for your organization

Tell us what you are working on and we will say honestly whether we can help.

Talk to Us The Georgia Ground Game