About the Public Policy Summit: The AAKP Public Policy Summit is hosted annually by the American Association of Kidney Patients (AAKP), the nation’s oldest and largest independent kidney patient organization. The event informs policymakers and kidney care stakeholders of specific federal, legislative, regulatory, and reimbursement/payment issues that may impact kidney patient consumers, the expansion of their care choices, and the multiple challenges faced by investors and innovation leaders working to advance new kidney medical diagnostics, drugs, and devices into the U.S. marketplace. The event also provides critical insights into timely Executive Branch, Congressional, and media issues that have implications for the advancement of kidney research, policy, and care innovation.

Speakers include kidney patient consumers along with elected and appointed leaders, kidney health and organ transplant experts, industry leaders, researchers, and other stakeholders. The Summit emphasizes core AAKP initiatives, such as KidneyVoter™ (the only non-partisan, national kidney community voter registration program) and the Patient Voice Patient Choice™ effort which targets and channels the organized voices of kidney patient consumers to help shape federal policy deliberations.

Since its launch in 2018, the Summit has served as a forum to organize support for major policy changes such as the inclusion of living organ donors under the Family Medical Leave Act (2018), the Trump Administration’s Executive Order on Advancing American Kidney Health (2019), the extension of federal immunosuppressive drug coverage to ensure long-term transplant survival (2020), and the passage of the bipartisan law modernizing the Organ Procurement and Transplant Network (OPTN) via greater competition and oversight (2023). In recent years, the Policy Summit has been a vital platform to spotlight Government Determinants of Health (GDOH) – federal regulatory and payment decisions that impede the lives and livelihoods of kidney patients and further burden American taxpayers.

About the 2026 Public Policy Summit:  2026 marks a pivotal year in the AAKP-led Decade of the Kidney™, a ten-year mobilization effort to support the principles and policies that served as the underpinnings for the historic 2019 Executive Order on Advancing American Kidney Health.

As the national healthcare agenda and priorities evolve, the 2026 Public Policy Summit will convene kidney patients, care partners, clinicians, researchers, policymakers, and industry leaders to discuss new patient-centered regulatory and payment solutions that can improve patient outcomes, reduce taxpayer costs and strengthen American kidney health. This year’s Summit will focus on common sense forward-looking policies that elevate the kidney patient as the most important stakeholder in federal healthcare decision-making.

AAKP is fully committed to disease prevention, early detection and intervention, expanded access to innovative therapies and technologies, greater protections and support for living organ donors, and improved long-term transplant success and quality of life. The 2026 Public Policy Summit will continue AAKP’s leadership in advocating for common sense reforms that empower patients, strengthen transplant readiness, encourage innovation, reduce federal government interference, and help build a more effective and sustainable kidney healthcare system for future generations.

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