Patients Rising builds and trains a national network of patient advocates who engage directly in healthcare policy discussions at the state and federal level.
We do not treat patient stories as symbolic. We help patients understand policy, translate their experiences into effective advocacy, and engage decision-makers with clarity, credibility, and purpose across every congressional district.
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Policy decisions are shaped by timing, context, and consequence and stories play a critical role in all three.
Access to the right treatment at the right time does not happen by accident. It happens when real patient experience is translated into clear, credible advocacy and delivered to the right decision-makers at the right moment.
At Patients Rising, storytelling is not treated as awareness or emotion. It is treated as strategy. Stories have impact when grounded in policy understanding and told with intention. They have the power to change legislation, influence regulatory thinking, and improve outcomes for patients far beyond a single experience.
This belief guides our work. Patients Rising trains patients to understand the policies shaping their care helps them translate their experience into effective advocacy.
Healthcare policy is no different from any other system of power. Decisions are made by people, and people are influenced by stories that clarify consequences and human impact. Stories told at the right moment can change the course of policy, and ultimately change lives.
Policy decisions are shaped by timing, context, and consequence. Stories play a critical role in all three.
Terry Wilcox & Jonathan Wilcox
Co-Founders, Patients Rising
Patients Rising is a national patient advocacy organization focused on advancing patient-focused healthcare policy.
We work to ensure patients have a voice in the decisions that shape access, affordability, and choice in the U.S. healthcare system. Our work is grounded in policy, informed by patient experience, and driven by outcomes.
Too many healthcare decisions are made without patients in the room.
Patients face barriers that delay care, restrict treatment options, increase out-of-pocket costs, and substitute bureaucratic judgment for clinical decision-making. These barriers are not accidental. They reflect policies, incentives, and systems that too often place cost control ahead of patient needs.
Patients Rising works where policy decisions are made to ensure patient perspectives are not symbolic, but influential.
We train and support patient advocates to engage directly in policy conversations. Our work focuses on translating patient experience into informed advocacy that decision-makers understand and cannot ignore.
Empowering every patient in America to advocate for reforms placing them, alongside their doctors, in control of their healthcare choices.
Patients should be able to access the care that is right for them when it matters, guided by clinical judgment, innovation, and individual need.
Protecting patient access to new and emerging treatments
Supporting innovation that expands options and improves outcomes
Encouraging modern care delivery that reaches patients where they are
Ensuring access is driven by medical need and not geography, bureaucracy, or intermediaries
High out-of-pocket costs remain one of the greatest threats to patient access. We support solutions that reduce patient costs without limiting treatment options.
Greater flexibility in Health Savings Accounts (HSAs)
Direct cost-sharing assistance
Policies that strengthen domestic medical innovation and manufacturing
We oppose approaches that shift costs by restricting access, including government price controls, Prescription Drug Affordability Boards (PDABs), and value frameworks that delay or limit care.
Patients deserve to know the real cost of their care before, during, and after treatment. Healthcare should not be the only sector where pricing is unknowable and accountability is optional.
Transparency and accountability in healthcare help patients understand costs, incentives, and how decisions are made.
Clear, upfront pricing information for patients
Oversight of middlemen and pricing practices that drive up costs and limit choice
Accountability and transparency in the 340B program
Healthcare dollars for routine healthcare decisions should be directed by patients in partnership with their doctors.
Patients Rising supports policies that give patients greater control over how healthcare resources are used, ultimately expanding choice and restoring decision-making to the doctor-patient relationship.
Directing healthcare dollars to patients, not bureaucracies or intermediaries
Preserving clinical decision-making between patients and their doctors
Expanding choice so care reflects individual needs and priorities
Your sponsorship helps fuel the programs that educate, empower, and amplify patient voices nationwide. Join us in shaping a more equitable, accessible healthcare system that listens to the people it serves.