Overview

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) plays a pivotal role in shaping national standards for coverage, reimbursement, and value assessment—ultimately influencing patients’ access to needed therapies. Patient organizations bring unique, real-world insights that can shape CMS’s decisions on treatment access, yet many groups are unaware of how or when to effectively engage.

The FasterCures Vital Voices effort equips patient organizations with the knowledge and strategies to engage effectively with CMS and inform decisions on therapeutic access. This collection brings together resources that provide both an understanding of CMS’s structure and mandates, as well as practical strategies for building coalitions, collecting patient experience data, and navigating state-level policy. Together, these materials offer real-world insights and actionable approaches that strengthen patient organizations’ engagement with CMS and elevate the patient voice in its activities and decisions.

Vital Voices Workshop

This four-part dynamic in-person workshop aimed to empower patient organizations to engage effectively with CMS. Attendees discovered how to tap into existing engagement structures, heard real-world success stories, and explored innovative strategies to inform treatment access and coverage decisions.

A wide shot of a presentation room where a woman stands at a wooden podium speaking.
Welcome and Overview of CMS Centers, Functions, and Resources for Patients

Part 1
This session provides a broad overview of CMS Centers and their functions. It will provide an orientation to various offices and programs supporting health care and medical product access at federal and state levels, including Medicare (Parts A–D), Medicaid, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. The session also discusses programs designed to engage and support the patient community.  

Welcome Remarks

Kristin Schneeman
Senior Director, FasterCures, Milken Institute Health  

Presenter

Lee Fleisher, MD, ML
Founding Principal and CEO at Rubrum Advising, LLC; Former Chief Medical Officer and Director of the Center for Clinical Standards and Quality (CCSQ), CMS  

A high-angle view of a conference room during a Q&A session. A woman in a black top stands at a wooden podium on the left.
Patient Organization Opportunities to Engage with CMS for Medical Product Access Determinations in Medicare

Part 2
This presentation covers CMS’s traditional and new mandates that are most relevant to therapeutic access and coverage, including the Medicare Drug Pricing Negotiation Program, national and local coverage determination processes, prior authorization, new technology add-on payments, and drug utilization/formulary reviews.    

Presenter

Kristi Martin, MA, MPA
Director, Camber Collective; Former Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor to the Deputy Administrator, CMS 

A diverse panel of four women seated in director's chairs during a professional workshop, with a moderator standing at a lectern and an audience in the foreground.
Expert Panel Discussion: Strategies for Engaging CMS

Part 3
This moderated session includes experts with CMS and health technology-assessment-related patient engagement experience.

This panel focused on the following topics: 
•    examples and cases regarding the need and use for more structured patient-informed data to inform coverage and the value of medical products
•    when is the ideal time to engage in the processes?
•    dos and don’ts when planning to engage CMS and others to inform patient access to medical products with real-life data and stories

Panelists

Catherine Koola Fischer, MPH
Director of Patient Engagement, Institute for Clinical and Economic Review 
 
Kristi Martin, MA, MPA
Director, Camber Collective; Former Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor to the Deputy Administrator, CMS 
 
Jean Moody-Williams RN, MPP
Founder and CEO, JDMW Healthcare Advisors LLC, and Former Deputy Director, Center for Clinical Standards and Quality (CCSQ), CMS  

Moderator

June Cha, PhD, MPH
Policy Director, FasterCures, Milken Institute Health  

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Patient Organization Case Examples and Closing Remarks

Part 4
Patient organizations share their stories of engaging CMS, highlighting the purpose of the engagement, initial contact and relationship management approach, centers involved, methods and strategies employed to engage and provide input, types of information utilized, partnerships involved, challenges, lessons learned, how information was utilized, and impact of engagement/outcome. A Q&A session with the audience follows the presentations.

Panelists

Tiffany Westrich-Robertson
CEO, Co-Founder, and Board President, AI Arthritis
  
Jason Harris
Vice President of Government Relations & Advocacy, National Psoriasis Foundation  

Rich Brennan, MA
Vice President of Government Affairs, The ALS Association  

Moderator

Kristin Schneeman
Senior Director, FasterCures, Milken Institute Health   

Closing Remarks

Raymond Puerini
Director, FasterCures, Milken Institute Health  

Vital Voices Webinar Series

Vital Voices
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