Alliance for Patient Advocacy

With our dedicated staff, community and new board structure consisting of patients and patient advocates with autoimmunity, primary immunodeficiency, bleeding disorders and other rare chronic and/or genetic diseases, the NEW Alliance will achieve our mission to unite patient organizations to form a powerful voice that represents the interests and needs of all patients. Our staff members are Michelle Vogel, Founder and Executive Director and Elizabeth Swinford, Director of Operations. Through advocacy, education, and community outreach we strive to ensure access to all life saving and enhancing therapies in all sites of care. The Alliance is dedicated to educating the public, policymakers and media about discriminatory practices that hinder patients from receiving lifesaving and enhancing therapies. By working with other patient advocates, states, Congress and Federal Agencies, we strive to reform specialty tier/coinsurance health plans, eliminate fail first/step therapies, and eliminate single source provider agreements. The Alliance for Patient Advocacy invites all stakeholders to join our effort to improve access to affordable life saving and enhancing therapies by:

• Eliminating the practice of coinsurance and replacing it with the transparent practice of reasonable, affordable copays that cannot be raised during a plan year.
• Eliminating the practice of step therapy or fail first therapy which directly threatens the patient/healthcare provider relationship because physicians are no longer deciding the best treatment for individual patients based on medical necessity and individual patient needs.
• Eliminating single source provider agreements to ensure that patients have access to the most effective and efficient brand of prescription medication, as well as, the best site of care for individual patient needs. Patients should have the choice of providers and sites of care.