Patient Advocate Foundation: Help With Insurance, Access to Care, and Medical Costs

Best for

People with serious or chronic health conditions who need hands-on help resolving insurance denials, accessing treatment, navigating disability benefits, or dealing with the financial burden of care.

What They Do

Patient Advocate Foundation, or PAF, is a national nonprofit that provides free case management and financial assistance to eligible people living with chronic, life-threatening, or debilitating illnesses. Its case managers work directly with patients and families to address practical barriers to care, including insurance denials, prior authorizations, disability benefits, medical costs, and other financial or access problems that can become overwhelming during serious illness.

How They Can Help

·       Free case management for eligible patients and families living with serious or chronic health conditions.

·       Help securing prior authorizations and resolving health-insurance denials.

·       Guidance through disability-benefit applications and related access problems.

·       Help identifying resources for financial hardship created by illness and treatment.

·       Educational tools for insurance appeals, denials, medical bills, and communicating with insurers.

·       Separate financial-aid programs for eligible patients, subject to program requirements and available funding.

Who It’s For

PAF serves people across many diagnoses rather than focusing only on cancer. Its case-management program is designed for eligible patients with serious or chronic health conditions who are in treatment, beginning treatment, or have recently completed treatment. A patient, caregiver, or healthcare provider can ask PAF for help.

Why This Resource Matters

PAF is especially useful when information alone is not enough. Its case managers can work directly with and on behalf of patients to untangle insurance barriers, prior authorizations, denials, disability benefits, and financial problems. That makes it a practical next step when someone understands the problem but still cannot get the healthcare system to solve it.

How to Get Help

Start with PAF Case Management on the Patient Advocate Foundation website or call 800-532-5274, Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern. PAF limits the number of new cases it can accept at a given time, so if the program cannot take your case when you call, the organization advises calling again the next day. Financial-aid programs have separate eligibility requirements and may depend on available funding.