STATE & FEDERAL GOVERNMENT RELATIONS WINS
Increasing federal reimbursement rates through strategic regulatory and congressional engagement
The Ingram Group’s government relations expertise has yielded tens of millions of dollars in increased reimbursement rates annually for a coalition of healthcare provider organizations. The client organizations were severely disadvantaged by a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services formula that determines Medicare reimbursement rates. TIG developed a two-prong strategy to advocate for permanent reforms with the U.S. Congress as well as immediate regulatory relief with CMS. TIG secured multi-year reimbursement increases from CMS worth tens of millions of dollars annually. TIG also successfully worked with members of Congress in both chambers to introduce legislation, secured legislative endorsements from third-party stakeholder organizations, educated hundreds of congressional staff from more than 20 congressional delegations about the need for permanent reforms, and activated those offices to formally engage CMS on the need for regulatory relief.
Building coalitions, drafting legislation, educating Congress, and affecting implementation
The Ingram Group formed and continues to lead an alliance of industry associations that are disappointed with the way a new law is being implemented. TIG has worked with the associations to catalogue the law’s implementation failures; collected nationwide grassroots examples of the law’s implementation failures and economic disruptions; successfully facilitated a grassroots fly-in to meet with nearly 90congressional offices in strategic states to advocate for an alternative, including providing training sessions on how to effectively advocate with members of Congress and preparing the associations’ one-pagers; and educated congressional offices on industry concerns while offering the industry’s legislative solution. Throughout this process, TIG persuaded multiple U.S. senators to contact the regulators overseeing the law’s implementation about their concerns, helped congressional offices draft industry-supported legislation, secured strategic endorsements from attorneys general in key industry states, and drafted and placed multiple op-eds in media outlets to build additional public support. Throughout this process, the clients have also become the go-to industry thought leaders and a resource to Congress.
Resolving challenges by building strategic governmental support and successfully passing legislation:
The Ingram Group helps clients navigate governmental contracts and requests-for-proposal opportunities. For example, at the state level, an international leader in energy efficiency and sustainability for buildings engaged TIG to identify and resolve unknown obstacles that prevented the state’s facilities from utilizing some of the client’s industry-leading energy-saving technologies. TIG facilitated meetings with strategic executive branch commissioners and key staff from multiple state agencies and determined that the obstacles were in the financing and contracting mechanisms of such projects rather than with the client or their technology. TIG then worked to update the law, coordinating with multiple state agencies and utility associations; negotiated and drafted legislative bill language to resolve the problem; built support for the bill in the state legislature; and successfully worked to pass the bill that session, thus resolving the client’s challenge.