Dr. Balch is the Chief Executive Officer of Patient Advocate Foundation and National Patient Advocate Foundation.

Dr. Balch has more than 20 years of executive leadership in the non-profit sector spanning multiple advocacy areas including access and affordability, health equity, prevention and early detection, and cancer research, He became the CEO of both PAF and NPAF in 2013 and has served as a member of both Boards of Directors since 2007. From 2006-2013, he served as Vice President of the Preventive Health Partnership — a national health promotion collaboration between the American Cancer Society, American Diabetes Association, and American Heart Association. Prior to his work with the Preventive Health Partnership, Dr. Balch was the Executive Director of Friends of Cancer Research from 2003 to 2006.

Dr. Balch currently serves or recently served on dozens of selective boards, steering committees, and councils for an array of institutions to include the National Academies of Medicine, the National Quality Forum (NQF), National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA), the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER), the Clinical Pathways Congress, the Council for Affordable Health Coverage (CAHC), the Innovation and Value Initiative (IVI), Core Quality Measure Collaborative (CQMC), the Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy (FACT), the Hutchinson Institute for Cancer Outcomes Research (HICOR), the Duke-Margolis Value-Based Payment Consortium, the Specialty Pharmacy Certification Board (SPCB), and the Pharmacy Quality Alliance (PQA). Most recently, Dr. Balch was selected as a Co-Chair of the North American Patient Representatives Roundtable for the Professional Society for Health Economics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR).

Dr. Balch also serves on the editorial board and as a contributing editor for the Journal of Clinical Pathways and on the advisory board for the Journal of Oncology Navigation and Survivorship. He is frequently invited to peer review article submissions to various publications including the Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, Journal of Clinical Oncology, American Journal of Preventive Medicine, and the American Journal of Public Health.

He earned his PhD in environmental studies with a concentration in political economy in 2003 from the University of California, Santa Cruz; his master’s degree in environmental sciences in 1997 from the University of Texas in San Antonio; his bachelor’s degree (cum laude) in biology in 1994 from Trinity University in San Antonio.