There's no shortage of people talking about what's wrong with
healthcare. TAG exists to explain how it actually works and why it
produces the outcomes it does.
I built The Access Gap from a specific vantage point. I've worked on both sides of the access problem.
It started in insurance in 2021, inside the enrollment conversation. Enrollment turned out to be the easy part. What happens after, when someone tries to actually use their coverage, is where things get complicated. The wrong formulary tier. An out-of-network specialist nobody flagged. A plan that looked right on paper and failed in practice.
That question pulled me deeper. Into specialty patient access. Into the workflows that determine whether patients actually receive the treatments their doctors prescribed. Prior authorizations. Patient assistance programs. Formulary navigation. Specialty pharmacy triage. Watching clinicians make the right clinical call and watching the system intervene anyway.
Most people who work in insurance never see what happens inside a specialty practice. Most people who work in specialty access never spend time inside the enrollment conversation. That dual vantage point is what makes TAG different from the commentary already out there. It's the foundation everything here is built on.
- Taylor McKinney
THE CENTRAL BELIEF
Coverage and access are not the same thing. A patient can be enrolled in a plan and still be unable to get the medication their doctor prescribed. A beneficiary can have insurance and still face a six-week prior authorization process for a treatment that's medically necessary and time-sensitive.
The gap between what medicine can do and what patients actually receive is shaped by policy, economics, information failures, and design choices that were never made with the patient in mind.
That gap is solvable. That's the whole point.
Insurance enrollment and specialty patient access. Different lanes. The same gap.
From coverage education to provider operations to health equity and what's coming next.
Why don't people get the care they need and what does it take to change that.
An editorial platform offering informed analysis of healthcare access — exploring the perspectives of both patients and providers.
A carrier website. A generic benefits blog. A vendor pitching services. The content here is the point, not a path to a sales call.
Someone who has worked inside specialty patient access workflows and inside the insurance enrollment conversation. The dual vantage point is the asset.
Every piece of content on TAG connects back to one question: why don't people get the care they need. These five pillars are the framework for answering it.
01
The gap is always there
Connecting individual failures to the systems that produced them
02
Coverage is complicated
How it actually works, before something goes wrong
03
The provider side
What specialty practices and RCM teams are up against every day
04
Who it hits hardest
The gap is not evenly distributed and the data shows it
05
What's coming
Pattern recognition and forward-looking analysis for people inside the work
Most people don't understand how the system actually works until something goes wrong. TAG exists to close that gap before it becomes a care gap. In plain language, without the spin.
Operational, specific, and honest about what the system is doing. For practice administrators, RCM teams, and anyone who works alongside the access problem every day.
Systems-level analysis of the healthcare access problem — written by someone who works inside it. No talking points. No filler. Just honest, specific thinking about why the gap exists and what it takes to close it.
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