Patients Rising

10/11/2026

For patients, physician payment policy is ultimately an access issue. After decades of Medicare reimbursement failing to keep pace with the cost of running a medical practice, independent physicians face mounting financial pressure that can translate into fewer practices, longer waits and greater distances to care. The Patients First Act (H.R. 9693) seeks to address the underlying payment structure rather than relying on another temporary congressional fix.

Patients Rising explains why keeping physicians financially viable is inseparable from keeping care accessible: https://hubs.ly/Q04zRxzQ0

10/09/2026

The promise of 340B is rooted in helping providers stretch limited resources to serve patients who need care most. But when steep drug discounts are followed by enormous markups and patients are still left with substantial bills, Thomas Johnson says that promise deserves scrutiny.

At the 2026 State of the Patient Summit, Johnson pointed to the case of a cancer patient whose treatment illustrated the disconnect that can occur between what a hospital pays for a drug, what a public program is billed and what ultimately reaches the patient.

“A hospital purchased [a cancer] drug for about $2,700. They ended up billing Medicaid $22,700 for that drug. They received $10,000 payment from Medicaid for it, and they still went ahead and billed that patient $2,500,” Johnson said. “So, you know, that’s abuse of the program.”

His example raises the fundamental question at the center of the Summit’s 340B conversation: When the program generates substantial financial benefit, how much of that benefit is reaching the patients it was created to help?

10/08/2026

Over the past week, you've seen us discuss the Patients First Act (H.R. 9693), the bipartisan legislation designed to stabilize Medicare physician payments and help medical practices keep pace with the rising cost of providing care.

What makes this so important is that, according to the American Medical Association, Medicare physician payments have declined 33% since 2001, and as operating costs continue to rise, medical practices face increasing financial pressure that can affect their ability to maintain services and accept new patients.

As one of the leading organizations supporting H.R. 9693, we're helping bring greater attention to the consequences of Medicare payment instability and ensuring that patients' access to care remains central to the discussion.

Our initiative was recently highlighted in Inside Health Policy, which reported on an October 5 letter to House and Senate leadership urging substantive Medicare physician payment reform and emphasizing the importance of protecting patients' access to care.

10/08/2026

What does Medicare physician payment have to do with whether you can get an appointment with your doctor? More than most patients realize.

The cost of running a medical practice keeps rising, and when Medicare payments fail to keep pace, independent practices can face increasingly difficult decisions about whether they can continue serving Medicare patients or remain open at all.

That is why Patients Rising is supporting the Patients First Act, H.R. 9693, which would change how Medicare physician payments are calculated and provide more predictable annual updates tied to the cost of delivering care.
Because for patients, this is not just a payment formula. It can mean whether your doctor’s door is still open when you need it.

Ask your representative to support H.R. 9693, the Patients First Act.

10/07/2026

A shift in how Medicare reimburses certain cancer therapies is raising questions about whether payment policy can keep pace with medical innovation. As newer formulations dramatically reduce the time required to administer some treatments, the way Medicare values and reimburses those advances could influence whether patients can benefit from them.

Patients Rising examines the CMS proposal and what it could mean for the future of cancer care.

Read more: https://hubs.ly/Q04zphYQ0

10/06/2026

A younger-onset Alzheimer’s diagnosis can upend decades of financial planning almost overnight.

Chad Fink was 52. He and his wife, Jenn, had saved for their future with the expectation that they still had years of earning, planning and preparing ahead of them. Alzheimer’s changed that timeline.

In this episode of the State of the Patient Podcast, we go back to a conversation with Chad and Jenn from the 2026 State of the Patient Summit as we explore younger-onset Alzheimer’s, the realities of caregiving and what happens when a diagnosis arrives decades earlier than a family ever expected.

Their story opens a larger conversation about early diagnosis, access to treatment, financial pressures and the people who take on the enormous responsibility of caring for someone they love.

You can listen to the latest episode of the State of the Patient Podcast here: https://hubs.ly/Q04z6p0B0

10/05/2026

Getting an appointment shouldn’t depend on whether your doctor can afford to keep the doors open.

Yet across the country, patients are waiting longer, traveling farther and watching independent practices disappear from their communities. Medicare physician payment, adjusted for practice-cost inflation, has fallen 33% over the past 25 years. For patients, that erosion can eventually show up as fewer doctors, fewer appointments and fewer options close to home.

The Patients First Act (H.R. 9693) takes aim at the payment policies contributing to that problem, including annual reimbursement updates and Medicare’s budget-neutrality rules. Patients Rising is supporting the legislation and bringing the patient voice into a debate that can determine whether care remains accessible in the communities that need it.

Read why we’re fighting to keep the doctor’s door open:

Medicare pays doctors a third less than in 2001, and patients pay for it in closed practices and long waits. Why Patients Rising backs H.R. 9693 in 2026.

10/04/2026

A conversation at the State of the Patient Summit is reaching audiences across the country.

The San Francisco Sun highlighted remarks from Dr. Anthony DiGiorgio during our 340B panel, where he raised a critical question about whether the program’s current incentives are aligned with the safety-net patients it was designed to serve.

“One of the ironies of 340B is that once you meet that DSH threshold, you aren't rewarded for treating more safety-net patients in your hospital. You're actually incentivized to treat fewer safety-net patients and treat more privately insured commercial patients.”

The San Francisco Sun examined his argument alongside research on how 340B eligibility and hospital incentives intersect, extending a conversation that began at the State of the Patient Summit well beyond Capitol Hill.

This is why Patients Rising brings these discussions into the room: patients deserve transparency about how health care programs operate, who they serve and whether their incentives match their purpose.

Read the coverage from the San Francisco Sun:

A UCSF neurosurgeon says 340B's eligibility rules and its revenue model reward two very different kinds of patients.

10/02/2026

Some problems in health care are extraordinarily complicated. Others become much easier to understand once someone explains the incentive underneath them.

Neglected diseases present a particularly difficult economic contradiction. The burden of disease can be enormous while the commercial incentive to develop a treatment remains remarkably small. In this episode of the State of the Patient Podcast, former FDA official Dr. Tim Cote distills that contradiction into a line that is difficult to forget.

Listen to the State of the Patient Podcast to hear how changing an incentive helped change what was possible for patients: https://hubs.ly/Q04yp5VJ0

10/01/2026

Medical innovation has a translation problem.

We spend enormous amounts of time measuring progress by what science can discover, develop and prove. Patients experience progress differently. They experience it through what actually becomes available to them.

That distinction is especially important in Alzheimer’s disease, where advances are changing the conversation around when we can intervene and what may be possible after an earlier answer.
At the State of the Patient Summit, we examined what has to happen between medical progress and the person waiting to benefit from it.

The Alzheimer’s Screening and Prevention Act is part of that conversation. Here’s what patients should know.