Orthopedic advocacy: a starter's guide for optimizing physician engagement and public awareness.

Orthopedic advocacy is an indispensable tool for surgeons to help shape health care policies and address the mounting challenges they face in providing quality care to patients and maintaining a sustainable practice. Health care advocacy embodies a commitment to fair health care access and provider autonomy, employs diverse strategies to amplify patient and doctor voices, and advances public health imperatives. Orthopedic advocacy confronts a myriad of legislative challenges specific to the orthopedic specialty, from reimbursement complexities to regulatory burdens. This necessitates strategic alliances and grassroots engagement to effectuate meaningful change. By fostering public awareness and legislative engagement, individual surgeons can drive transformative reforms, ensuring orthopedic practice aligns with patient needs and advances health care impartiality. The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons advocacy program along with its subspecialty affiliates, such as the American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons political advocacy committee, have a structured approach to advocacy comprising government relations, grassroots mobilization, and educational initiatives. This review explores the basis of health care advocacy including the structure of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons advocacy program. In addition to highlighting key legislative issues facing front-line orthopedic surgeons, this manuscript provides some provisional insights on how individual surgeons can engage in orthopedic advocacy to drive positive change.