ASAP Act Offers Avenue to Unprecedented Hope for Earlier Diagnosis, Treatment of Alzheimer’s
Published March 26, 2026
“Hope” was the theme of a morning breakfast briefing on Capitol Hill this morning outlining a plan to get blood tests for Alzheimer’s disease into the hands of more patients. Until recently, a patient could not receive an Alzheimer’s diagnosis without an expensive scan or invasive procedure. Last year, the FDA cleared two blood-based biomarker tests, or BBB, that require only a routine blood sample for use in diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease.
More than 7 million Americans have Alzheimer’s, and a recent report found that over 90% of Americans would want to use this kind of simple medical test to detect Alzheimer’s if it was available to them. New technology in the form of BBB tests improve early detection of Alzheimer’s disease, however, the tests are not covered by insurance. Bipartisan legislation called the Alzheimer’s Screening and Prevention (ASAP) Act would direct the Medicare program to cover the FDA-approved tests.
Sponsored by the Alliance for Aging Research and produced in partnership with The Hill, the program, “Getting a Diagnosis ASAP: Progress in Early Alzheimer’s Detection” convened lawmakers, Alzheimer’s advocates, physicians and researchers.
The event kicked off with a sponsor segment interview with Alliance for Aging Research President & CEO Sue Peschin, MHS, and Jay Reinstein, an Alzheimer’s advocate and Alliance board member who is living with the disease.
“Imagine a world where we could screen for Alzheimer’s with simple blood tests like we do today for heart disease, diabetes and many cancers years or many decades before signs and symptoms,” Peschin said. “That world is on its way, but we need to prepare and we need policymakers to ensure coverage and fair access.”
Reinstein shared what the additional time between his Alzheimer’s diagnosis and seeking treatment would have afforded him. “On a personal level, early detection is so critical because it really gives you an opportunity to make those lifestyle changes,” he said, adding that reducing stress, eating better, increasing exercise, and more can help maintain brain function and buy more time to enroll in clinical trials. “Unfortunately, under the current law it could take more than a decade – that’s 10 years – before Medicare has the authority to cover FDA-approved blood based biomarker screenings for Alzheimer’s, and that’s why we’re really excited about the ASAP Act.”
Early detection and diagnosis allows people to plan and access treatment.
“More time is more time with my wife, and my kids and my grandkids, my friends, my parents who are aging…that’s really a priority,” Reinstein said. “If I was able to take this blood test earlier in my life, there’s no questions that I would have made major adjustments and seek out clinical trials. A clinical trial would have given me hope.”
Blood tests are less expensive than PET scans and their future use in screening can be used in primary care settings. This is positive because it’s not easy to find a neurologist in rural settings and can even take 12-18 months to access in an urban setting, according to Reinstein.
“We’re talking about screening and early diagnosis but none of this really will help people unless there’s fair access to FDA approved treatments.”
The sponsor segment was followed by an interview with Joe Grogan, Nonresident Senior Scholar, USC Schaeffer Institute & Former Director, Domestic Policy Council & Assistant to President Trump, who sat down the The Hill’s Kathleen Koch to discuss the gap between FDA approval of screening tools and coverage/access to the tests.
“[The tests] should be part of routine Medicare screening, annual screening because when you talk about 8 million people that have this disease, you’re talking about a lot of Medicare beneficiaries and a lot of people aging into Medicare that would benefit from having the knowledge that you are on track. If you make the lifestyle changes right now you can improve your disease progression and we can monitor you so that when you are eligible for the drugs that are approved now or for the next wave of drugs, we can get you on appropriate treatment.”
Grogan says CMS only pays for prevention in rare circumstances, which is counterintuitive.
“That’s why the ASAP Act is so important keep these families together, keep people working for as long as possible – and frankly I think it’s a cost-saver penny wise pound foolish to not pay for these screening tests.”
ASAP Act co-sponsors Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL), Co-Sponsor, ASAP Act & Vice-Chair, Ways & Means Committee, and Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY), Co-Sponsor, ASAP Act & Member, Energy & Commerce Committee, spoke together on how the ASAP Act will help patients and families.
“I’m big on prevention. I think our whole health system is backwards. We react to things instead of being proactive,” Buchanan said, adding that his father had Alzheimer’s at a ery young age which fuels his passion for health and this legislation. “The point is to get after these things in early stages the best we can and that’s why we’re fighting for this…there’s a lot of momentum in the Democrat and Republican side of things,” he said, adding that the bill has 50 co-sponsors. “If you look at heart disease, cancer, and catch it early many times you can deal with it in a positive way long term. And that’s the same thing what we’re trying to do here. It’s too expensive not to. And I’m very bullish about it.”
Tonko echoed his sentiment, saying that “the ASAP bill is another effort to move forward with a great deal of progress.” He questioned why conquering Alzheimer’s is not a priority, arguing that we should prioritize Alzheimer’s rather than other recent ocncerns.
A panel discussion, moderated by Koch, included the following panelists:
- Dr. Cara Leahy, Director, Cognitive Disorders, Memorial Healthcare & Doctor of Neurology, Memorial Healthcare Institute, shared that she has ordered more than 400 BBB tests for her patients in the last 2-and-a-half years, but shares a financial assistance form because insurance coverage is the biggest barrier. She touted the tests as a quicker way to give patients answers about their concerns for being seen. “Maybe 5/6 years ago, we didn’t use the word ‘hope’ in Alzheimer’s. We were careful about that. We didn’t want to be in the market of false hope – there’s a lot out there; it’s a big business. I use that word all the time now…there is hope in making strides not just in diagnosis but for treatments too and I get to see that every single day with my patients,” Leahy said. “I have patients that are stable on the new treatments coming up now on about three years they haven’t changed and that’s incredibly hopeful.” She added that she has patients who are proud to be on these new treatments so that their grandkids don’t fear this disease.
- John Dwyer, Global Alzheimer’s Platform Foundation, highlighted the need for diagnostics and treatments. “The technology is exploding. Soon we’re going to be able to go to our doctor and get tests for Parkinson’s, ALS, and MS…We’re going to be able to start isolating quite precisely for better care planning and better therapies.” He also said that “information is power” and this bill “is critical to creating a ubiquitous understanding…so we know what we’re dealing with and can attack other pathologies that exist in this disease. If we can get this done this year, everybody in this room is better off.”
- Carole Roan Gresenz,Dean, McCourt School of Public Policy, Georgetown University & Former Senior Advisor for Strategic Health Initiatives, President Biden’s Administration, shared her research on financial indicators of Alzheimer’s, saying that often, symptoms begin years ahead and that impact personal finances. Financial consequences like a credit score dropping, over subscribing to magazines, getting the driveway paved to many times, unpaid parking tickets, and frivolous purchases are common up to 6 years before an official diagnosis. These patterns can contribute to poor financial health at a time when patients need to take out a line of credit to pay for care.