Rose Gerber: Cancer Patients Made Their Voices Heard on Capitol Hill

When the COA Patient Advocacy Network converged on Capitol Hill on April 26, 50 advocates were able to discuss their concerns with a number of issues facing patients with cancer, including 340B and clinic consolidation, explained Rose Gerber, director of patient advocacy for the Community Oncology Alliance (COA).

Transcript

The COA Patient Advocacy Network recently went to Capital Hill. What were you advocating for?

Yesterday was a very important milestone for the COA Patient Advocacy Network. We brought a group of 50 advocates from across the country, representing 11 different states and multiple community practices, and our goal was to enhance COA's presence on the Hill. As many people know COA and we've done a lot of great work bringing physicians to Capitol Hill, we've brought nurses to Capitol Hill, but this time we wanted to actually bring our patients.

So we did address issues such as the concerns regarding cancer clinic consolidation. We did talk about our concerns as patients over the current issues with the 340B program. Everyone knows we think 340B has a lot of good intent, but we also know that it is a concern for cancer patients.

We talked a lot about cost of care and it was just a great opportunity for advocates to understand how their voice matters all the way from their small towns in Georgia to Capitol Hill.