Letter to Sponsors of the Accelerating Kids’ Access to Care for Kids Act
July 18th, 2023
The Honorable Michael Bennet
U.S. Senate
261 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
The Honorable Chuck Grassley
U.S. Senate
135 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
The Honorable Lori Trahan
U.S. House Of Representatives
2439 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
The Honorable Mariannette Miller-Meeks
U.S. House Of Representatives
1034 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Senator Grassley, Senator Bennet, Representative Trahan, and Representative Miller-Meeks:
The undersigned childhood cancer organizations are members of the Alliance for Childhood Cancer, consisting of patient advocacy groups, healthcare professionals and scientific organizations, representing millions of Americans who care deeply about childhood cancer. We are writing to offer our endorsement of the Accelerating Kids’ Access to Care Act. Your bipartisan and bicameral legislation will help support children with complex medical needs like childhood cancers.
Children with cancer face unique health care concerns and often require specialized care from a specific provider, including a practitioner with unique subspecialty expertise or a facility that maintains care teams and resources with the expertise to address the unique needs of the child’s medical condition. Unfortunately, these providers or facilities are not available in every state. As a result, many children do not have access to specialized care in their home state.
For children with complex medical needs such as cancer, patients are routinely required to travel out of state to receive care from a specific specialist or care team. Over 40 percent of children in the United States rely on Medicaid and CHIP as their central sources of health care coverage, but Medicaid and CHIP coverage is limited to providers in a child’s home state. Under current requirements, if a child’s medical condition requires them to obtain care from an out-of-state provider or an out-of-state care team, the provider must go through the screening and enrollment process in the child’s home state Medicaid program. This process causes burdensome, unnecessary delays in providing time-sensitive care and can unfortunately cause a child’s condition to worsen.
The Accelerating Kids’ Access to Care Act would address these delays by creating an alternative opt-in pathway for providers in good standing to enroll in multiple state Medicaid programs, allowing them to provide essential, time-sensitive care to children who need it. By reducing this administrative burden, the Accelerating Kids’ Access to Care Act will allow children with complex medical needs greater access to providers who can best meet their needs.
Thank you for your leadership on behalf of children with cancer. We look forward to working with you to enact the Accelerating Kids’ Access to Care Act. Should you have any questions or need additional information, please contact Sarah Milberg, Co-Chair of the Alliance for Childhood Cancer, at smilberg@allianceforchildhoodcancer.org, or Dr. Michael Link, Co-Chair of the Alliance for Childhood Cancer, at mlink@stanford.edu.
Sincerely,
The Alliance for Childhood Cancer
American Academy of Pediatrics
American Association for Cancer Research
American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network
American Childhood Cancer Organization
American Society of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology
The Andrew McDonough B+ Foundation
Association for Clinical Oncology
Association of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Nurses
Association of Pediatric Oncology Social Workers
Children’s Brain Tumor Foundation
Children’s Cancer Cause
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society
Mattie Miracle Cancer Foundation
National Brain Tumor Society
Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation
Rally Foundation for Childhood Cancer Research
St. Baldrick’s Foundation
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
2318 Mill Road Alexandria, VA 22314 | alliance@asco.org | www.allianceforchildhoodcancer.org