Federal News & Issues

Feb 12, 2020

Washington, D.C., — The members of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) have chosen Vivian Pender, M.D., as the medical society’s next president-elect. The results were released today but are not official until the APA Board of Trustees confirms them at its March meeting.

Pender is clinical professor of psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College, a training psychoanalyst at Columbia University, and a consultant psychiatrist and psychoanalyst to the United Nations. She is in private practice in New York City and founder of Healthcare Against Trafficking, Inc., working to raise awareness of the role of health care in addressing this public health issue.

An APA Distinguished Life Fellow, she has served in...

Jan 30, 2020

Washington, DC — Representing more than a half-million of America's frontline physicians and medical students, leaders from six major medical organizations—the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American College of Physicians, the American Osteopathic Association and the American Psychiatric Association—issued the following joint statement opposing new guidance issued by the U.S. Centers for Medicaid and Medicaid Services (CMS):

“The CMS guidance issued today fundamentally alters the Medicaid program in a way that disproportionately burdens states, threatens the public safety net and makes it more difficult for our patients to get the care they need. By giving states the option to pursue block grants and per capita...