On September 18, 2025, Mark R. Warner (D-VA) and Susan Collins (R-ME) reintroduced the bipartisan Improving Access to Advance Care Planning Act. This legislation is an essential step toward ensuring that every person can have meaningful conversations about their goals, values, and care preferences — and make it possible to have those choices respected when it matters most. By allowing clinical social workers to provide advance care planning (ACP) services, removing beneficiary cost-sharing, and promoting education on ACP billing, this bill addresses many of the systemic obstacles that have long stood in the way of broader adoption.
We applaud Sens. Warner and Collins for reenergizing this legislative bill, which would remove critical barriers and expand access to ACP services for millions of Medicare beneficiaries. Further, MyDirectives is proud to stand alongside leading advocacy organizations in supporting this bill, such as The Coalition to Transform Advanced Care (C-TAC), LeadingAge, National Partnership for Healthcare and Hospice Innovation (NPHI), National Alliance for Care at Home, Center for Medicare Advocacy, Consumer Coalition for Quality Health Care, and Smarter Health Care Coalition, as one of the named supporters of the bill.
To make this initiative fully successful, nationwide access and interoperability are critical for ensuring that ACP documents are available whenever and wherever they’re needed — and this is right in our wheelhouse. Our proprietary A|D Vault Exchange™ is the only nationwide registry of advance directives and portable medical order forms like POLST that is HITRUST-certified and accessible to more than 90% of the U.S. healthcare ecosystem. That makes MyDirectives uniquely positioned to help make the vision of this legislation a reality. We make it possible for individuals to securely document, store, and share their care preferences so their voices can be heard across care settings — from the clinic to the emergency department, and even in the field with EMS and other first responders.
We know firsthand that early, accessible, and coordinated ACP benefits everyone — patients, families, clinicians, and the healthcare system as a whole. Removing cost and access barriers is how we make those benefits a reality nationwide.
We stand ready to work with policymakers, payers, health systems, and community partners to make the promise of this legislation a reality.