Targeting Equitable Access to Medicine
About Us
AIM Center is a nonprofit working to help patients afford and access their medicines.
Drug pricing is a wide problem with a lot of moving parts. We aim for the center of it: the patient. Debates about pricing tend to be fought between manufacturers, insurers, pharmacy benefit managers, and pharmacies, and the person actually paying at the counter is usually left out. We keep that person at the center of everything we do.
We work in two ways.
Policy and Research
We write policy briefs, white papers, and academic publications on drug pricing and access, and we bring them directly to legislators and their staff. Authors are responsible for engaging with legislative offices, presenting their work, and supporting follow-up discussions. Our work is produced with mentors and advisors in health policy, medicine, pharmacy, and law.
Patient Volunteering
We train volunteers and connect them with patients who are struggling to afford or access a prescription. The same drug can carry very different prices depending on where and how it is purchased, and finding the lowest one takes time, phone calls, and knowledge of how the system is put together. Volunteers do that work for patients: pricing every available route, screening for and enrolling patients in assistance programs, and handling the paperwork and calls to insurers, pharmacies, and prescribers.
We measure ourselves on three things: how many patients we serve, how much money we save them, and how many people get a medication they otherwise would have gone without.
How AIM Center Works
Open Access, High Standards
Anyone can start. Volunteers work through our training modules at their own pace and schedule an interview when they are ready. No prior background is required — expectations are centered on initiative, follow-through, and quality of work.
Real Responsibility
Volunteers are assigned real cases with a patient on the other end, and they own them through to resolution, with supervision at every step. Understanding insurance, benefit design, and drug pricing on the ground is experience most people don't get until much later.
Project-Based
Work All contributions are tied to defined projects with tangible outputs, including op-eds, policy briefs for policymakers, and research for academic journals.
Mentorship and Growth
Members who demonstrate strong work are connected with faculty mentors, collaborative research opportunities, and more advanced projects. Our goal is to expand access to serious work while holding a high standard for rigor.
Independence
We do not accept funding from pharmaceutical manufacturers or pharmacy benefit managers. Our obligation runs to the patients we serve and to the accuracy of what we publish.