Health Policy Ball - Winston Health Fellowship

The Health “Prom,” Our Annual Fundraiser

The Health Policy Ball, fondly called the “Health Prom” by generations of health staffers, was initiated by David Winston in 1985 as a social gathering among friends and colleagues in the healthcare field at the beginning of each new year. In his memory, the Ball has become the principal annual fundraising event for the Winston Fellowships and Scholarships.

For 2022 the Health Ball will be held on Saturday, May 14.
Government guests are invited directly by the Fellowship in order to comply with all government ethics requirements; sponsors are encouraged to return seats at their tables for these guests.
Please click on the Ball information for sponsors and the Ball policies and procedures tabs for further information.

When: Saturday, May 14, 2022

Where: The Ritz-Carlton, Tyson's Corner
McLean, Virginia

Photo Gallery

We offer three levels of sponsorship and each sponsor may purchase up to a maximum of three tables in combinations described below:

Platinum Sponsorship

($15,000) – as a Platinum Sponsor you receive premier placement close to the dance floor for your table seating 10 people. Your sponsorship will be recognized in the program and in signage. Additionally, you will be recognized as a co-sponsor of the post-dinner reception in the Old Dominion Room. You may purchase up to two Platinum sponsorship tables.

Gold Circle Sponsorship

($12,000) – as a Gold Circle Sponsor you receive a table for 10 people in the first three rows adjacent to the dance floor. Your sponsorship will be recognized and highlighted in the program and in signage. You may purchase up to two Gold Circle sponsorship tables.

Silver Sponsorship

($6,000) – As a Silver Sponsor you receive a table for 10 people. Your sponsorship will be recognized in the program and signage. You may purchase one Silver sponsorship table (but may purchase additional tables at a higher level if you want more than one table).

We expect a high demand for tables and want to make them available equitably. That is why we are limiting the number of tables a sponsor can purchase. We also try to distribute table locations among all of our sponsoring organizations, and so may not be able to assure sponsors that if they purchase more than one, those will be adjacent to each other. We treat companies that submit reservations separately but that are under a single corporate umbrella as one company for the purposes of table limitations.

Please reserve your table(s) soon because they sell-out very quickly. Details regarding sponsorship and how to reserve a table will be sent out during the second week of October. We will send you a confirmation within two business days. If you do not receive one, please check back with us by emailing Kerry McAteer at kmcateer@winstonfellowship.org to ensure we received your reservation.

As in previous years, we are offering you the opportunity to host Congressional and Administration invitees and their guest at your table(s). In your reservation, please indicate how many seats at your table(s) (in multiples of two) you would like to donate back to the Fellowship for government guests we will seat with you.

We adhere to government ethics rules and consistent with those rules, all invitations to government guests must be extended solely by the Fellowship. The Fellowship will extend invitations to a broad array of individuals and then assign them to sponsor tables. To ensure compliance with ethics rules, the Fellowship will not fulfill requests for specific government guests to be seated at a particular organization's table. Please do not invite or seat any Congressional or Administration guests yourself, as this may place you and these individuals in danger of violating ethics rules.

We will send printed invitations for non-government guests in early December and will advise you of which government guests will be seated at your table in late January. Please refer to the Health Policy Ball Policies and Procedures for more information regarding how the Fellowship invites and seats government guests and additional important information about the Ball. If you have any questions or concerns about this process at any point, please feel free to contact Kerry McAteer at (202) 585-0288.

Invitations to sponsor will be sent directly from the Fellowship. If you would like to be added to the invitation list, please email ball@winstonfellowship.org.

Change Healthcare
Capitol Counsel
CapView Strategies
Children's Hospital Association
CIGNA
Consumer Healthcare Products Association
Cozen O'Connor
Crowell & Moring
CVS Health
Cystic Fibrosis Foundation
DaVita Inc.
Eli Lilly & Company
Encompass Health
Faegre Drinker
Federation of American Hospitals
Fresenius Medical Care
FTI Consultulting
Health Care Cost Institute
Healthcare Leadership Council
Healthcare Technology Network of Greater Washington
HIMSS
Holland & Knight, LLP
Hooper, Lundy & Bookman, PC
Horizon Government Affairs
Horizon Therapeutics
Johnson & Johnson
Kaiser Permanente
Knight Capitol Consultants
Latham & Watkins, LLP
Lincare
Lupus and Allied Diseases Association, Inc.

Managed Health Care Associates
Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP
Marwood Group
McDermott Will & Emery/McDermott + Consulting
Medical Device Manufacturers Association
Medtronic
Mehlman Castagnetti Rosen & Thomas
ML Strategies
Monlina Healthcare Inc.
Mylan
Nathanson + Hauck
National Association of Chain Drug Stores
National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization
National Pharmaceutical Council
National Quality Forum
Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough
Non Profit Kidney Care Alliance
One Call
Otsuka
Permobil, Inc.
Pfizer
PhRMA
Powers, Pyles, Sutter & Verville, PC
Preimier healthcare alliance
Sanofi
Smith & Nephew Inc.
Sunovian Pharmaceuticals
The Commonwealth Fund
The Joint Commission
The Moran Group
The Vogel Group
Thorn Run Partners
Vizient
Walgreen Company
Waxman Strategies
WellCare
Zimmer Biomet

At the Winston Fellowship, we make every effort to ensure that the Health Policy Ball complies with all government ethics laws. Our policies and procedures are designed to protect our guests and sponsors from inadvertently violating these rules. They also assure the ethics officers that the government officials we invite are attending a legitimate, ethically appropriate event. If you have any questions about our policies, please do not hesitate to let us know. In order to meet these and other practical goals, we have developed the following procedures.

Congressional and Administration guests are invited and assigned to tables by the Fellowship and should not accept invitations directly from table sponsoring organizations. Please do not invite or seat any Congressional or Administration guests at your table unless they have been assigned by the Fellowship. Doing so may place these individuals, yourselves, and others in danger of violating ethics rules.
The Fellowship will identify those government officials who will be invited to attend the Ball. Since the number of government officials invited is determined by the number of seats sponsors donate back to the Fellowship, for this purpose please consider donating a seat at your table to the Fellowship.
The Fellowship extends Ball invitations directly to government officials and receives their RSVPs. The Fellowship then assigns government invitees and their guests to sponsor tables throughout the room.
After the Fellowship assigns the government guest to a table, both the table sponsor and the government guest are notified of the seating assignment. The Fellowship cannot, of course, guarantee the ultimate attendance of the government guest and encourages table sponsors to coordinate with the assigned guest(s) prior to the Ball to ensure attendance and to coordinate a meeting place. Prior to the Ball, if the government guest notifies the Fellowship that they will not attend, the Fellowship will contact the sponsor as soon as possible. If the government guest notifies the table sponsor that they will not attend, the Fellowship requests that the table sponsor notify us as soon as possible so that we can attempts to assign another guest to the table.
If a table sponsor invites a government guest directly, the Fellowship may have to consider withholding an invitation to that sponsor in the future.
Payment for table reservations is due to the Fellowship by January 10, 2020. Table reservations that are not paid by January 11th will be released to the waiting list.

Cancellation Policy: Cancellations received prior to November 11, 2020 will not incur a cancellation fee. Cancellations received between the following dates will be assessed a cancellation fee:

DATE	CANCELLATION FEE
From Nov 11 - Dec 9	15%
From Dec 10 - Jan 10	25%
After Jan 11, 2020	Not eligible for refund

The Fellowship recognizes that some sponsors consider hosting parties held in conjunction with the Health Policy Ball. Our policy on sponsor hosted parties is consistent with our policy for the Ball itself. Should the cancellation fee not be paid in full before March 1, 2020, the Fellowship may consider withholding an invitation to sponsor a table in the future.

Ethics approval for government guests to attend the Ball extends only to the reception, dinner, and dance hosted by the Fellowship. Table sponsors who hold a separate event must inform invitees that they should obtain separate ethics approval to attend that event.
Table sponsors who opt to hold an event must send a copy of the invitation list for government invitees to the Ball staff (ball@winstonfellowship.org) no later than January 22, 2020, and before sending invitations to their event. Our staff will review the list and indicate to the sponsor any government invitees on the invitation list who have not been invited to the Ball. To avoid confusion over seating at the Ball, table sponsors tasked to invite only government guests to sponsor-hosted events who are also invited to the Ball.

To avoid confusion, table sponsors may not reference the Winston Health Policy Ball or use the name “Winston,” “Health Policy Ball” or “Winston Health Policy Fellowship” in their invitations.

By providing unprecedented access to the health policy community in DC, the fellowship is like a ticket to a party that you didn’t even know existed, but that may change your life entirely once you do.

Diana Birkett

2003 Winston Fellow