Ep. 157: Urgent Care Advocacy: Inside the Fight for Better Urgent Care Reimbursement - Interview with Kristin Rastatter with the Urgent Care Association
About this Episode
In this episode, Kristin Rastatter, Advocacy Manager at the Urgent Care Association (UCA), shares her unique journey from Meals on Wheels to urgent care advocacy. The discussion centers on UCA's initiatives with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to secure fair reimbursement for urgent care centers. Kristin details how a recent congressional letter with 26 bipartisan signatures led to CMS including urgent care in their Request for Information (RFI), marking significant progress in their advocacy efforts. She emphasizes how urgent care centers can help address emergency department overcrowding and serve underserved communities when properly supported. The episode provides practical steps for getting involved in advocacy, from UCA membership to organizing site visits with legislators, highlighting that advocacy is more approachable and relationship-focused than many might expect. Kristin encourages listeners to participate in upcoming initiatives, including Senate outreach and the Capitol Hill Advocacy Day in February.
Topics Covered
- Advocacy is essential for urgent care facilities to thrive.
- Kristin transitioned from Meals on Wheels to UCA to pursue her passion for healthcare advocacy.
- Urgent care centers face significant reimbursement challenges despite providing valuable services.
- Education is crucial for patients to understand when to use urgent care versus emergency services.
- Building relationships with policymakers is key to successful advocacy efforts.
- UCA provides resources and support for members to engage in advocacy.
- Site visits to urgent care centers can strengthen relationships with legislators.
- The importance of community health and urgent care's role in it cannot be overstated.
- Advocacy efforts can lead to meaningful changes in healthcare policy.
- Joining UCA can amplify the voice of urgent care providers.
"Relationships are kind of the core of advocacy... It's about building that relationship. It's the core of how things get done."
Kristin Rastatter, Urgent Care Association
About Kristin:
Kristin Rastatter serves as Advocacy Manager at the Urgent Care Association (UCA). Her journey into the non-profit sector began with her work at Meals on Wheels, where she discovered her passion for helping others. In her role there, she focused on advocacy and outreach, volunteer management, developing programs for elderly recipients, and fundraising to sustain the organization’s services.
Kristin is dedicated to advocating for Urgent Care. She is actively involved in several key initiatives, including collaborating with UCA’s lobbyist, McDermott+, to engage with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Together, they are working to develop new initiatives aimed at reducing emergency department overutilization and ensuring fair payment for Urgent Care services.
These efforts highlight Kristin’s commitment to advancing the Urgent Care industry and ensuring it continues to provide essential services to communities.
Get Involved with the Urgent Care Association:
https://urgentcareassociation.org/uc-advocacy/
Connect with Kristin:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristin-rastatter-b862b1255/
WIW (00:00)
Hey, what is up Walk-Ins Welcome Family? Nick here and I am Sands Michael today. He is not with me today, but I do have a guest and anytime I get a chance to bring in somebody from the Urgent Care Association, I'm gonna do that. Cause we always talk about how we want to help you get more patients. We wanna help you get repeat visits. We wanna help you deliver better care and we want you to be able to scale your clinics. And there is no organization out there that does it better than the UCA. That is what they're all about.
So our guest today is Kristin Rastater. She is an Advocacy Manager at the Urgent Care Association. Kristin's advocacy journey, she started with Meals on Wheels, where she developed a strong passion for helping others. Obviously with Meals on Wheels, you're doing some good things. So she's now at the UCA involved in initiatives like working with the CMS to address emergency room overuse. And more important for our listeners, she's advocating for fair reimbursement in urgent care. And as things have moved over to this quality of care or,
I'll let you get into it when we get to the podcast, just the way they pay, the way the payers work, the advocacy for this is more needed than ever. So Kristen, welcome to Walk-Ins Welcome. We're glad to have you. Say hello to the Walk-Ins Welcome fam and tell us one thing about you that nobody else knows.
Kristin Rastatter (01:12)
Hey everyone, I'm Kristen and one thing that nobody knows, I would say, I mean especially because we're kind of all in a virtual world right now, so something that unless you see me in person you will not know, I am over six feet tall. So when people meet me in person they're like, you're a giant.
WIW (01:27)
You're right.
I don't think you're a giant. You're tall. That's okay. They have the tall stores for people. They don't have the short and fat for like, you know, they don't do that. They call it big and tall and I don't fit like I'm big, but not tall. So everything, I don't know. It looks like Danny DeVito and everything. six feet tall. How's that? How has that served you so far?
Kristin Rastatter (01:55)
As a teenager, I hated it, but as almost 40, I've grown into it. And I have four kids and they're all giants. My husband's six, four, so we're just a tall, giant family.
WIW (01:57)
Okay.
So what you're saying is that had absolutely no bearing on the outcome of your adulthood. And I love that so much. So good. Same here. I could be short and dumpy and still get married and have kids and have a career and everything. I love it so much. That's good. All right. I need to hear more about meals on wheels. We're going to get into all the fun advocacy stuff. I can't wait to do that, but I need to tell you first that my father-in-law lives with us. And even though we don't need it, he is a recipient because of Medicaid for meals on wheels. How did one, how did you get into that?
Kristin Rastatter (02:11)
Nope. Nope.
Mm-hmm.
WIW (02:35)
Two, what did you do there? Let's talk about Meals on Wheels for just a second.
Kristin Rastatter (02:39)
Sure, was actually right before Meals on Wheels, I was a stay at home mom for almost a decade. And then when it was time, I wanted to start getting back out into the workforce. I wanted to find something I could be passionate about, something that made me feel good. And Meals on Wheels was perfect for that. We were a small nonprofit, very small staff. So I did a little bit of everything, really. I was bookkeeper, I was recipient coordinator, I was fundraising person, I was the...
WIW (02:44)
Okay.
Kristin Rastatter (03:07)
executive assistant to the director. So I always say I did everything but bolt cooking. I never actually got in the kitchen and did the cooking, but it's such a wonderful program. You'd think I'd be a pro at bolt cooking with so many kids, but I'm not.
WIW (03:16)
That's a cry of shame.
So it's.
My son went to make a sandwich the other day for school and he's like, dad, why is bread individually wrapped? It's like one slice of bread wrapped in like cellophane or something. no, that's huge. I love the fact that you brought purpose into it. And I can obviously see how it's trickled into the UCA, but having purpose behind what you do keeps it from being just another mundane job, right?
Kristin Rastatter (03:51)
Absolutely, absolutely. And it just, feel like something else that's translated very well into UCA advocacy work. I feel like if you are passionate about something, it's almost contagious, or it can be contagious. So if you show the purpose behind it and the excitement and your passion, it kind of catches, which is how things get done.
WIW (03:52)
Hmm.
It is, it's a spark for sure. I know when I bring my energy to the room, you can see people kind of, you know, straighten up a little bit, maybe lean in, you know what I mean? And people, people catch that and it's so much fun as it's so different though. Like I could work it. I'm not trying to belittle McDonald's or Walmart or anything like that, but you can see the difference in somebody who has a purpose behind what they do versus somebody collecting a paycheck. And it just makes all the difference in the world. So that took you, that took you from a stay at home mom.
Kristin Rastatter (04:25)
yeah.
yeah, absolutely agree.
WIW (04:43)
into the workspace with purpose and passion. And then how in the world did you transition from Meals on Wheels over to the Urgent Care Association? Tell me about that transition real quick.
Kristin Rastatter (04:44)
Thank
Well, we moved from Florida to Georgia about a little over a year ago. So Meals on Wheels is not a remote job, obviously. So just looking for my next passion, something that I really believed in and something that I could really get behind and having four kids. I'm very familiar with urgent care and I'm very grateful for urgent care. So when I kind of came across this, it was like light bulb moment. Like this is the perfect.
WIW (05:01)
Right? For sure.
Kristin Rastatter (05:22)
fit for me and I believe it is.
WIW (05:25)
That's fun. I know for us, it's weird. how, Nick, how did in the world did you get into urgent care marketing? Right. So it's something about urgent care is a very different approach because it's like a retail healthcare. So it's experience first care kind of equal in second, right. But it's really all about the experience because you have to compete with other people, right? Like it's, it's not like a hospital system. So, well, getting into advocacy real quick, you talked about the spark.
Kristin Rastatter (05:44)
Good one.
Mm-hmm.
WIW (05:55)
you know, kind of lighting you up for the purpose of going into the urgent care association and that energy that you bring even on Meals on Wheels. But advocacy is a completely different thing. It's not just going into an urgent care and making it better. Now you're fighting on behalf of the urgent cares. say fighting, lobbying. What's the right word for that? I know advocacy, but what do you mean by that when you say that?
Kristin Rastatter (06:06)
it is.
I usually use the word fighting. I mean, honestly, that we're fighting for urgent care. That's the word that I use. just, some of the stuff that I didn't know about urgent care that I learned since I've started at UCA, I did not realize the payment disparity that is with urgent care. Urgent care centers are doing all of these awesome things. They have always held a high capacity through training in their enhanced facilities and all this stuff that they do.
WIW (06:21)
That's what it feels like.
Kristin Rastatter (06:48)
but they've never actually gotten paid for it, which was shocking to me that they're not getting the reimbursements that they deserve for all these great things that they're doing. So that's why I use that word fighting, because we were truly fighting tooth and nail, like jumping up and down, hey, we're right here, we're doing all this awesome stuff, look at all the urgent care did through COVID, where's our support? Where's that at? So it's a fight.
WIW (07:17)
funny that you say that we were what is the first of all, what is the name of that kind of reimbursement called? I think I said it wrong. It's like value based care. How is that what it's called? The reimbursements how you get paid?
Kristin Rastatter (07:29)
Well, we just say right now our advocacy goal is just higher reimbursement like blanket blanket statement We're starting with CMS and Medicare reimbursements. That's our our current path So we're going we're starting at the federal level and then eventually trickling down, you know federal advocacy is a marathon It's not a sprint. It's it's a long game multi-year thing. But once we kind of tie the CMS stuff
WIW (07:41)
Okay. Okay.
Mm. Right.
Kristin Rastatter (07:57)
and a nice bow, hopefully that's when we'll move on to like commercial payer reimbursement stuff because we know commercial payers make up the bulk of urgent care payments. So.
WIW (08:07)
Everybody, everybody's best friend, right? The old commercial pair. So, I won't ask you about your feelings about United. We'll keep that to ourselves. So, I can get it every time with the laugh. No, know exactly where people stay on with it. so, what does advocacy look like? I mean, cause we're going to talk about here in a minute, like how to get involved, what that looks like, how, how it can be intimidating and how you remove or alleviate that intimidation. But
Kristin Rastatter (08:10)
Yeah, yeah, big gorilla.
Hahahaha
Yes.
WIW (08:37)
What exactly does it look like to advocate for urgent cares and specifically for PACE?
Kristin Rastatter (08:43)
Sure, sure. So on the federal level, which is what UCA is tackling, we have our lobbyist McDermott Plus. They have been fantastic. They are kind of guiding us along this federal advocacy journey. some things we've gotten a lot of really exciting stuff done this year. Beginning of the year, we had a congressional letter signed by 26 bipartisan members of the House, and that was sent to CMS. And in that letter, all those House members
We're basically saying to CMS, look, urgent care is here. They're doing these great things. We need to find more ways to support them. So that was great. 26 bipartisan signatures was a huge deal. And then between then and say, June or July, we were having meetings with CMS leaders and kind of talking to them about that letter, saying, what are some things that we can start working on to make some more support happen? That sort of thing. Of course, CMS was
noncommittal. They're not going to say, yeah, this is great. We're going to jump right on this. But they were engaged. They could have easily just pat us on the head and said, see you never. But they didn't. And then much to kind of everybody's surprise, CMS included urgent care in a request for information or RFI in the July release of the proposed physician fee schedule. And basically an RFI is CMS's way of
WIW (09:48)
Right.
Right.
Kristin Rastatter (10:12)
asking for feedback for any policy change they might be considering. So they posted on the federal register, it's open for public comment, and they kind of gather information that way. Even that alone, it seems like a smaller thing, but our lobbyists had already kind of told us this could take a little while to even get in via an RFI. So when it came out in July, we were all just very pleasantly.
pleasantly surprised. So that was the first giant, giant step. And then UCA made our official comment letter to that RFI. And this is kind of that next big step, what we're kind of pushing for. We tried to really hit home all of these extra things that urgent care does. So they're open outside of normal business hours. have x-ray services, enhanced diagnostic therapy. They do so much of this stuff.
So we suggested a new enhanced place of service code and then a G code to go along with that. So these enhanced centers can be more appropriately compensated. That's where that extra additional money would come in. We're saying we're doing these enhanced things. Now please, please pay us for them. And we also talked about going, having the support and enabling urgent care to expand.
WIW (11:32)
Yeah, no, for sure.
Kristin Rastatter (11:39)
into these underserved areas. So some of these areas that don't really have a lot of healthcare options, if urgent care is supported, we can help. We're set up to help in those situations. So we tried to really kind of tie all of that in a nice bow and say, we're here, we can do this, you just gotta help us. that was really good.
WIW (12:02)
this is going to sound like an insult, but I absolutely don't mean it this way toward urgent cares, but they remind me of dollar generals, right? So what I mean by that is like you have a grocery store that serves a community, maybe two or three that serve a community, but they put the dollar generals just like conveniently in place to take care of you when you need it, right? So I don't have to go.
Kristin Rastatter (12:24)
Right. Right.
WIW (12:26)
walk down 30 different aisles. I don't have to wait to check out. mean, I can literally go walk in and get whatever I need, check out myself and I'm out the door. And when I think of urgent care, you were talking about the smaller communities. Well, that's where you see all the dollar generals in these smaller communities. They're in all the big ones too, don't get me wrong, but man, they shine when you get out into a rural part of the country and you see they're not serving a three to five mile radius. They're serving a 30 mile.
Kristin Rastatter (12:41)
Right? Right?
Mm-hmm.
WIW (12:54)
And they're taking really good care of those communities. So I agree with you. I think that is very overlooked in how they're compensated for sure.
Kristin Rastatter (12:57)
Mm-hmm.
Absolutely. Well, and I think it comes down to education for the patients too, because I know using me as an example, a new mom almost 18 years ago, my first son had asthma. And so anytime he started wheezing and if it was, you know, six o'clock in the evening, I was taking him to the ER because I didn't know what to do. And then eventually his pediatrician said, unless he's bad, bad, you can take him to urgent care. And that, it changed my life.
It completely changed my life being able to take him to urgent care instead of having to go to the emergency room and wait hours and spend a lot more money there. Urgent care was like our savior. So it's education to letting people know when it's appropriate to go.
WIW (13:39)
you
Right. I'm very interested. You just, you just touched on something that isn't in my notes, but I I personally wanted to touch on. So let's go there for just a second because I'm selfish. So, you, you said, the emergency, you were going to the emergency room and paying a lot more money. Okay. So with the advocacy that you're doing, you're trying to get more reimbursement coming toward urgent cares, currently Medicaid, Medicare, but then to the payer system, the private payers,
Kristin Rastatter (13:57)
short.
WIW (14:18)
And just as just, you know, first, Kristin's second opinion, right? Like, I'm just curious about what you think. What do you expect is going to happen to the pricing of urgent cares once that happens?
Kristin Rastatter (14:29)
Honestly, I couldn't really speculate on that. I mean, our big point that we're making to CMS is that we're set up to help with ED overcrowding and overutilization. It's a problem that they have. We've identified it. We're setting ourselves up as part of the solution for that. How CMS develops mechanisms or different policies or different structures to be able to support urgent care in those efforts, it's kind of up to them.
We can't they've been open to suggestions from us so far. But ultimately, of course, it's going to be up to them. So I really, I really couldn't say exactly, but we're we're hopeful that they'll continue to be open to what we're saying.
WIW (15:16)
And do you think that, I'm trying to phrase this question correctly. Okay. So we work with hundreds of locations of urgent cares. All right. And we can very quickly tell you that this urgent care does x-rays and this one doesn't. This one does this, this one doesn't. And I think one of the challenges for urgent care is because it's a retail healthcare space and most likely it's privately owned unless it's part of a hospital system, there isn't really a consistency.
And like, I know exactly what to expect at there. There's not this foundational service for each urgent care, right? And so the, the immediate thought is, well, I'm only going to an urgent care if I have the sniffles or if I have a cold or if I have a fever or something like that. Do you think like some regulation would help?
systemize this across the board so that everybody knows what to expect from an urgent care and therefore it brings more value to the urgent cares to be paid more.
Kristin Rastatter (16:17)
think that's kind of what we're trying to do with this new enhanced place of service code. The definition of an enhanced urgent care that we suggested to CMS, it's basically the same definition that they have now for urgent care, but we added in some specifics like the open outside of normal business hours, advanced diagnostic and therapeutic services to get more specific. So those are the enhanced urgent care centers. So people know that they offer things like
WIW (16:22)
Okay.
Kristin Rastatter (16:46)
x-rays and it's not just sniffles and scrapes and because some people do think that and that's when they go to urgent care, which is great, but urgent care can do some of these somewhat higher acuity things and some people don't realize that. So I think starting there and having that enhanced definition put out by CMS would be a great first step.
WIW (16:47)
Hmm.
Right. The most used TikTok video and urgent care or a Instagram reel or whatever is it's one person like go this way for urgent care. You're this way for it's the same one, you know? But the problem with it being the same one is it's not always the same service, you know? I'll give me an example. When my son was six or seven like that, he broke his arm at a trampoline park. Cause that's what people do at trampoline parks.
Kristin Rastatter (17:18)
yeah, go this way.
Right.
Mm-hmm.
WIW (17:35)
And we took him to an urgent care because it was after hours. And they're like, yeah, we can't help you.
But okay. And so we had to go to an emergency room and sit there for what felt like an eternity, even though they were, by the way, the urgent care was nice to us and they helped us, but at the same time, they couldn't treat the problem. And so what I mean by that is like, there's a breakdown in what an urgent care can and can't do. And I think if that was systemized across the board and you had, you had brought, I can't remember exactly what phrase you just used, but I, but almost liking it as like a UCA accreditation, like
Kristin Rastatter (18:04)
Mm-hmm.
WIW (18:12)
This is what it is in order to qualify for this, right?
Kristin Rastatter (18:16)
Right, right, right. And accreditation is definitely a great place to start because you that's kind of put that stamp of approval. You have these higher standards and higher quality and you can do all of these things. So of course that's a great place to start.
WIW (18:17)
Gotcha.
So getting into advocacy obviously is an intimidating thing for people who don't know what even that is, right? So how does the UCA, let's talk about the UCA involvement in this. How does the UCA specifically make it easy for people to get involved, especially if they're new to it?
Kristin Rastatter (18:47)
Absolutely. And I agree. Some of this stuff can feel heavy. We're talking policy change and we're talking to Congress members and we're going to Capitol Hill to have congressional meetings and it feels a little daunting, but it's actually fun. It is fun. Every bit of feedback that I've gotten from everybody who's participated in some of our advocacy efforts, all I hear is how informative it was.
how they learned so much and how they just had a great time. And it's not this scary, scary thing. And I'll say my first experience being I went to South Carolina's state house back in May, they announced urgent care appreciation day in South Carolina. So it was my first time doing something like I was fairly new to UCA. So I go into the state house and expecting, know, very buttoned up and very formal. And I was nervous. It was,
Nothing like that. was nothing like that. was these members of Congress are people. They're just people. They're people like you and I. They want to hear from you about your struggles that you have going on. They want to hear if you have suggestions that could help. They're there to help and they don't know unless you tell them. I mean, being on the floor at the State House, it was this is Suzy Q, my granddaughter. It's her first day at the State House. Everybody stand up and clap.
Yay! This is the volleyball team and they won states. Yay! So it was very not as buttoned up and stuffy as I expected it to be. So it's just, it really is fun. It is.
WIW (20:24)
How could you not expect it? I mean, there's so much like vitriol when it comes to anything that even leans toward being political. And if you're discussing things with senates and oversight committees and all of these different kinds of things, you can't help but immediately go to, do I really want to get involved in politics in any way? Like these people are already crazy, right? So.
Kristin Rastatter (20:31)
Mm-hmm.
Right? Right?
WIW (20:46)
you know, you're describing something very different than what I think of when I think politics. think of, I think of one political party grilling another one on a stand and then talking over each other. That's what I, it's immediately where I go, but you're saying like you're stand up, say hello, say your name. You know, what are your kids names? That kind of thing. Right. So where, where did these events take place?
Kristin Rastatter (20:54)
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
it really, it's about that one in South Carolina was arranged by one of our UCA members. He had a existing relationship with one of the representatives there. They have a friendship, they started talking and they made it happen. It wasn't this, I say federal advocacy is again, marathon, not a sprint grassroots advocacy. So kind of like that more localized stuff can be a lot faster pace.
It can, it can, I think it was like from start to finish, Patrick O'Malley is our UCA member. He got a call from Chris Wooten and they said, let's do this in three weeks. And then before you know it, we were all in South Carolina. was three weeks later and it was declared urgent care appreciation day. anybody can do that. If you don't personally know a member of Congress, I'm sure you know somebody who does or somebody who
know somebody who knows somebody or there's connections everywhere if we actually just look for them. And it's about relationships are kind of the core of advocacy. Just attending some of their fundraisers and just getting FaceTime with them, building that relationship. It's the core of how things get done with advocacy. And it's really important to just put yourself out there a little bit. And we try at UCA to make it
as easy as possible. have template emails. One of the big things that we would love for people to do right now is beginning of the year, we worked on the house with that congressional letter. Now we are working on the Senate for another congressional letter to CMS. So smaller pool of people, but site visits. If you can get a member of Congress or their staff to come out and just tour your center.
Just show them all the awesome things that you're doing. You're great every day, so just let them watch you. Be great. It doesn't have to be this really big formal thing. It's just we have a email template that I can give you. So all you do is plug in your information. I'll give you the email addresses to send them to. I have a toolkit that I can give you. I'll jump on prep calls with you. I mean, we try to make it as easy as possible, but that's one of the huge things that people can do right now.
And it's fun. It builds staff morale. You can make like a fun day out of it for your staff. And it's, it makes a big impact because it starts that relationship with that senator's office. So that's really important right now.
WIW (23:48)
Well, just going back a few minutes into the story you were telling is you said that that event in South Carolina started with a UCA, a urgent care that got involved with the UCA to set this up. Right. The next thing that you said, and this is really where I want to dig in with the audiences. It's not what you know, it's who you have access to and the influence in your circle that you're going to be able to make the biggest impact.
Kristin Rastatter (24:02)
Mm-hmm.
WIW (24:17)
This is going to sound bad, but like you're not the secret. You're just part of a bigger picture. Right. So the scary part for me tends to go away a little bit when it's not on my shoulders. It's just through my introductions where the impact is going to be made. Right now we have people listening on this podcast that are hundreds of locations we've heard from them. We have people on this podcast that are three to five to seven locations.
Kristin Rastatter (24:21)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Absolutely.
WIW (24:47)
We have people that haven't even opened up their doors yet. They're in startup mode and to me, very exciting place to be. I love startup clinics. like there's just this freshness to them. That's, really cool. I like that. So anyway, that's the gambit. That's who we have listening. Knowing the scope and the size of these clinics, how can you get somebody at wherever they are in their journey and their urgent care, what's their next best step to get involved in advocacy?
Kristin Rastatter (25:18)
would say a great first start is if they are not UCA members to reach out to the membership team. The number one question we get from other stakeholders is how many are in your membership? How many members do you have? UCA is the trade association for urgent cares. There's over 14,000 centers in the US now. Our membership is a little over 4,000 of those. So there's power in numbers. So that alone does a lot.
WIW (25:25)
Mmm.
Yep, there are.
Kristin Rastatter (25:47)
just being a part of UCA. Always reaching out to me is always a great first step. I am happy to brainstorm because like you said, depending on where you're at in your urgent care journey, my answer might be different. Depending on where you're at in the country, my answer might be different. But I I love people reaching out and saying, I wanna help, but I don't know exactly where to start. And by the end of our conversation, we have a plan in place for what they can do, what they wanna do.
I give them templates and tool kits and connect them with the right people. And it's just, it comes together beautifully. So I think that would be a great first step. Just have people reach out to me to brainstorm.
WIW (26:29)
I love it. And we'll drop your information in the show notes so that people can either connect with you on LinkedIn or whatever way you gave me is what we're going to put in the show notes. I don't want to put your email out there for the world and you get spammed by everybody overseas, right? But LinkedIn, at least you can reject that if you need to. But I don't want to end just yet. There was something specifically that I wanted to ask. So we know that you're working on big initiatives with CMS. We know that it's specifically regarding emergency room overuse, fair pay for urgent cares.
Kristin Rastatter (26:36)
Perfect.
you
WIW (26:59)
Just if you're able to, because I don't know like NDAs and all that, but like break down just a couple of these projects. What do they look like?
Kristin Rastatter (27:07)
as far like specific ones with CMS or outside of that.
WIW (27:09)
Yeah, no, no, no with CMS.
Kristin Rastatter (27:12)
honestly, it's just keeping them engaged. So there's not specific initiatives that we're doing, like coming up, we're going to be meeting with CMS leaders again. So to a certain extent, we kind of have to follow their lead and pivot as we go along, depending on how they respond. so next step is meeting again with CMS leaders and then doing these site visits that I was talking about with senators offices. Again, I can't stress the importance of those. is.
So different to have those senators offices and their staffers meet you in person, see your centers. And then later when our lobbyists and us follow it up with a zoom call, we can say, yeah, they came, we did a visit at their center and we saw them do this. my mom lives down the road from there and they've treated her before. So that's more of those connections that they're building. And they're gonna stick in, we are going to stick in their minds more.
when those kind of connections are made. So that's really what we're really focusing on now. Meeting with CMS leaders, doing those site visits. We have our Capitol Hill Advocacy Day, or I call it CHAD, which is our lobby day that's coming up in February. And that's where UCA members come together on Capitol Hill and again, go to those congressional meetings and get more support for urgent care and that Senate letter that we have. those are the next.
kind of big things that we have going on and they're all really exciting stuff.
WIW (28:42)
I love it. It's so good. So the first right step, y'all join the UCA. If you're not already a member, join the UCA. Even as a vendor to urgent cares with patient care marketing pros, we are members of the UCA because we believe in what they're trying to do. So that's your first step is let's get involved in the UCA. There is power in numbers. The second thing I want to challenge you to do is if anything on this podcast has kind of stirred your interest a little bit,
Reach out to Kristin. I'll put her contact information in the show notes for the best way for you to get in touch with Kristin. She seems to me like she's nice enough to talk to you. We've met at another event before at a UCA conference, probably in Las Vegas. And I'll tell you, if you haven't planned to go to the Texas event in 25, I can speak from experience. It's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun.
Kristin Rastatter (29:23)
Yes.
It is.
WIW (29:35)
And this coming from a vendor. don't even get to go do all the cool stuff like the breakout rooms. I have to stay in there and just wait on you to come see me at the booth. And then,
Kristin Rastatter (29:41)
And I'm going to have an advocacy hub again so you can stop by and talk to me about advocacy.
WIW (29:45)
Come on.
Here you go. Harrison, thank you. I want you to, we'll say bye here, but I want you to, want you to, any parting words for the audience, anything to stir them up a little bit, now's your chance.
Kristin Rastatter (30:01)
Sure, sure. You can always again reach out to me, go to our website. I have a little advocacy section of the website. It's got a little roadmap and my favorite line that I like to use and I use it at the end of all of my newsletter videos is advocacy works. It really does. It works. If we band together, we can get stuff done. It's just gonna take all of us working together. So hopefully I'll get to work with lots and lots of people very soon.
WIW (30:29)
All right. Let's reach out to Kristen because we all want to get paid more money, right? Awesome. All right, Kristen, thank you for being a guest on Walk-Ins Welcome. We're so glad to have you. I hope there's an opportunity in the near future for you to come back on. I want to hear about progress. I know our audience wants to hear about how things are progressing and the best way for them to find that out is to get involved. And that's the last parting shot I'll give you. Have a great week. We'll see you next Wednesday. Kristen, thanks for coming on.
Kristin Rastatter (30:32)
That's right.
Thank you.
WIW (30:53)
All right, see you.