NAAOP Breece Fellowship Announcement and
Key Policy Updates 2025 Breece Fellow Selected

The NAAOP Board of Directors is proud to announce the selection of Annika Berlin as the 2025 George and Dena Breece Fellow. Annika will participate in a 10-week, paid fellowship in Washington, DC, which will begin in late May and extend through early August. Annika is the eighth Breece Fellow and will learn about O&P policy and advocacy in Washington within the context of the broader set of rehabilitation and disability policy issues. Annika graduated from U-Mass Amhurst and currently serves as a User Experience Specialist at PSYONIC, Inc., a startup creating advanced bionic hands. Congratulations Annika and special thanks to PSYONIC for its willingness to share Annika with NAAOP for the summer fellowship!

 

O&P Research At Risk After Years of Progress: NAAOP’s first major victory was its role in creation of the National Center for Medical Rehabilitation Research (NCMRR) at NIH in 1990, which focuses on rehabilitation science, including O&P research and development. The program grew rapidly and NIH now spends over $900 million annually on rehabilitation research, including O&P R&D. The new Administration is taking major steps to restructure NIH with funding restrictions and firings/furloughs of over 1200 NIH officials and staff. Many positive developments at NIH are at risk and NAAOP has joined with its Alliance partners to defend and proactively support O&P research at NIH.

 

O&P Outcomes Research Back on Track…For Now: NAAOP and the O&P Alliance worked collaboratively with the Amputee Coalition to continue funding for O&P outcomes research housed at the Department of Defense’s Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program (CDMRP). This program has funded over $120 million in O&P outcomes research since 2014. Important report language that was included in the Senate Appropriations bill for FY 2025 may have been lost when Congress extended last year’s funding levels through the remainder of the federal fiscal year which ends on September 30th . But recently, NAAOP learned that the Senate report language on O&P outcomes research survived and will allow O&P researchers to apply for competitively-selected grants later this year. NAAOP will continue to work with its partners to increase funding for O&P outcomes research in FY 2026.

 

NAAOP Spearheads Anti-Obesity Medication Expansion: NAAOP spearheaded an effort to educate national non-profit organizations to support a proposal by the Biden Administration to expand coverage of anti-obesity medications (AOMs) under the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Nearly 60 disability and rehabilitation organizations supported this proposal, including AAOP, AOPA, ABC, BOC and the Amputee Coalition. NAAOP met with the White House recently and Nikki Grace, an NAAOP Board member, participated in a very compelling presentation to the Administration to finalize the proposed rule as written. The decision was announced on April 4th but the new Administration did not decide either way. In short, we will live to fight another day. NAAOP rallied around this issue due to the significant connection between limb loss and obesity, including diabetes and peripheral vascular disease.