Below are some quick tips on how best to be heard.

Meeting With Your Legislators

The most effective way to deliver your message and build a relationship with an elected official is a face-to-face meeting, preferably at your health center.

Requesting A Meeting

• Contact the senator's or representative's office and ask to speak with the appointment secretary.


• Explain whom you represent and the reason you want a meeting with the senator or representative. Ask the scheduler how you can arrange a meeting.


• Ask the scheduler the amount of lead time needed to schedule a health center visit and send your invitation far enough in advance.


• When inviting the legislator to visit your health center, send a letter of invitation from the CEO and/or board chairman (or a board member who has a personal relationship with the legislator).

Tips for Conducting An Effective Office Visit

• Introduce yourself and any others in your group. Decide in advance who will lead the discussion and what points you want to make.


• Keep your meeting short and simple. Succinctly outline the case for your position on a particular piece of legislation or the issues that prompted your meeting.


• Give examples of how the issue affects your health center and the senator's or representative's constituents.


• Stay focused on the two or three key messages you want to leave with the legislator. It is easy to get off-track and run out of time.


• Answer any questions asked of you.


• Provide the legislator with a one-page position paper on your issues. Be sure to include your contact information.


• You might end up meeting with staff, rather than the senator or representative. Legislators depend on advice from their staff because it is impossible for them to follow all issues themselves. An elected official’s staff can sometimes be the real driving force on an issue.

Tips for Conducting an Effective Health Center Visit

• Extend the length of the meeting to include a brief tour of two or three important patient care areas of the health center. Choose areas that demonstrate the impact of your health center on the health of constituents. Walk the tour yourself in advance to make sure everything is in order and that you deliver your intended message.


• Provide opportunities for the senator or representative to meet key health center staff. Inform participants in advance so they can be prepared.


• Provide the legislator with a fact sheet on your health center. Include information such as: number of patients served, number of staff, employees and volunteers, Medicare and Medicaid patient load, etc.


• Notify MACHC about the planned visit. MACHC can help you compile statistics or information needed to illustrate your concerns.


• Make arrangements to photograph the legislator's visit and include a story on the visit in your health center's publications. Send the senator or representative copies of the stories. If local press coverage is desirable, coordinate solicitation of coverage with the legislator's press secretary.

Follow-up After the Meeting

• Send a thank you note the legislator and briefly restate your issue. Include any follow-up information that was promised.

Writing Letters

Short of a face-to-face meeting, letters and other written personal communications may be your most effective communication tool. Below are some tips on sending faxes and e-mail.

Tips for Effective Letter Writing

• Write to the legislators who represent your health center and to the legislators who represent the area where your patients live. Keep in mind that a large number of your patients may be coming from a geographical area outside of the legislative district where your health center is actually located. MACHC can provide you with maps to best illustrate this to your legislators.  


• Limit your letter to two pages maximum.


• Express appreciation for past or future support.


• Ask the legislator to send you a letter stating his/her position on the issue.


• Notify MACHC so that we can coordinate our activities with the grassroots efforts of your health center.

Phone Calls

When time is short, nothing works like a quick phone call to the office of key legislators. Your call is most likely to get attention if you have a personal relationship with the legislator. A well-timed call can be especially influential when combined with calls from colleagues on the same issue.

• Ask for the senator or representative if you know them personally.


• If you don't know them, ask to speak with the legislative assistant who handles your issue.


• If you can't reach a legislative assistant, leave a concise message. State legislative offices do count the number of calls they receive on an issue - pro and con - and relay that information to the senator or representative.


• Focus on a single issue, making two or three key points in your phone call.


• Have talking points to stay focused on the message you want to deliver.


• Show the impact on the legislator's constituents.


• Clearly state the action you support.


• Keep your call brief, no more than three or four minutes.


• Leave your name and telephone number.


• Jot down the name of the legislative assistant you spoke to. Next time, you can ask for him or her by name and begin building a relationship. Staffers are more likely to listen to and return phone calls from people they know.


• Send a thank you note!


• Provide feedback on your meeting to MACHC we may adjust our lobbying strategies, if needed.

Get To Know Congressional Staff

Building a good working relationship with congressional staff is as important as developing a relationship with your senator or representative. It's easier to reach and speak with staff. Staff members play a key role in helping legislators reach decisions.

Staff people may know a lot, or nothing, about health center issues. If the legislator sits on key committees responsible for health care, someone on their staff is likely to focus on health care.