Southern Medical Association (SMA) recognizes that healthcare regulations and policies are constantly changing, and that physicians must stay abreast of current issues and legislation that affect the practice of medicine. Most physicians would probably argue that their profession has paid a price for their absence from the debate over healthcare policy, especially as it applies to the clinical application of medicine and the ability to provide the best possible care for their patients. While physicians are closely engaged in considering the quality of clinical care of the patient, these two critical factors must be applied in the context of governmental regulations and policies to deliver effective, efficient, and compassionate health care. Physicians need the opportunity to go to the heart of policy-making and hear from those actively involved in charting the future of U.S. healthcare in order to take the lessons learned back to his/her own community of practice for education and improvement of healthcare.