Forbes Healthcare Summit 2026 Puts Access on the Agenda

Healthcare innovation travels through a long chain of people who can slow it down, improve it or decide it never belongs in routine care. The 2026 Forbes Healthcare Summit, scheduled for December 2 in New York with a virtual option, puts affordable access alongside the promise of longer, healthier lives.

Forbes' 15th annual gathering lists Epic founder and CEO Judy Faulkner and CVS Health chairman and CEO David Joyner among its speakers. Their operating worlds give health-tech founders, investors and care-system leaders a useful way to approach the event: follow an advance from the clinical workflow to the arrangements that make it available and payable. That is where a compelling idea starts acquiring obligations.

The summit is still ahead, and announced speakers remain subject to change. Its relevance before December 2 lies in the questions operators can bring with them, especially when a product's appeal has moved faster than the explanation of how people will use it.

Why the access question carries an economic cost

The United States spent $5.3T on healthcare in 2024, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Spending grew 7.2% and represented 18% of GDP. Those historical figures establish the scale of the system confronting a new healthcare product; they should not be confused with a 2026 spending estimate or a forecast of demand for any particular technology.

For a founder, affordability reaches well beyond the number on a price sheet. A buyer has to consider the time required to introduce a tool, the work it changes and the people who must support it after the demonstration ends. A product can offer an appealing benefit while leaving those responsibilities scattered across a provider, a technology supplier and a patient's coverage arrangements.

That makes the summit's access theme commercially useful. A discussion about medical progress becomes more revealing when it identifies who bears the cost of adoption and who receives the benefit. Investors can listen for those relationships before treating enthusiasm as evidence of a repeatable business. Operators can ask whether the proposed improvement survives contact with the process that will deliver it, including the unglamorous work of training, support and follow-through.

Judy Faulkner brings the clinical workflow into view

Epic's account of Judy Faulkner's approach to healthcare software describes developers spending time with clinicians in working care settings. The company also describes AI-assisted clinical documentation and preventive-care tools. These are first-party accounts of Epic's work, rather than independent findings about the effectiveness of any particular intervention.

That operating perspective matters to founders developing products around patient records. The clinical day already has an order, and a new tool enters somebody else's responsibilities. A useful conversation can examine what happens to the person reading a note, checking an output or deciding whether the information is sufficient to act. The person buying software and the person carrying its consequences may need very different explanations.

Faulkner's announced participation gives that perspective a place in the event's preparation. It does not establish a particular panel, presentation or product announcement. For a builder, the practical preparation is to arrive with an account of the workflow the product changes and the evidence the user will need to trust that change. The most interesting follow-up may be a plain operational question: who has to do something differently tomorrow, and what would make that change worthwhile for them?

David Joyner's perspective connects access with delivery

CVS Health describes David Joyner as leading a business spanning insurance plans, pharmacies, clinics and health services. Those activities touch different parts of the same person's care. For event followers, that makes the connection between service availability, coverage and the next step in care a useful line of inquiry, without assuming what Joyner will say at the summit.

The startup implication is specific. When a founder says a product makes care easier to reach, the next discussion should follow the patient through the proposed route. How does someone learn the service exists? What information must move with them? Who handles an exception, and who explains the cost? These are editorial preparation questions, not a published session agenda. They help translate an access claim into an operating plan that another organization can evaluate.

A similar discipline can improve networking. A founder who can describe the precise handoff that needs work gives a potential partner something concrete to assess. An investor can separate an attractive market narrative from a business whose responsibilities are understood. Neither approach guarantees an introduction or transaction, but both make the exchange more useful than another discussion in which every participant agrees healthcare should be easier and leaves the hard details for someone else.

How to approach the summit before December 2

In-person attendance is by invitation, and Forbes lists a $3K price for accepted applicants. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis, with November 24 recommended for consideration while space remains. An application requests an invitation; prospective attendees should confirm acceptance and current arrangements through the organizer before committing to travel. The public listing also identifies a virtual option, whose access details should be checked directly.

The reviewed organizer page did not establish an exact physical venue, street address or official session hours. It would be premature to fill those gaps with an earlier summit's location or an aggregator's timetable. The same discipline applies to speakers: an announced lineup offers a reason to pay attention, while individual meetings and commercial results depend on arrangements that a public event page cannot promise.

For builders and investors, preparation can begin with one unresolved deployment question and the evidence needed to answer it. DevCuration's coverage of the Forbes CIO Summit's enterprise AI decisions offers a related operating lens. In healthcare, the handoff carries an additional human consequence: someone waiting for an advance to become reachable care. As December 2 approaches, that person's route through the system remains the work connecting the clinical screen, the coverage decision and the next appointment.