Amy Goldstein, LMSW, is a nationally recognized healthcare strategist, coalition builder, and medical social worker with decades of experience advancing whole-person-centered care—particularly for individuals living with complex and chronic conditions such as pain, cancer, dementia, multiple sclerosis, kidney disease, and substance use disorders.

With a deep commitment to bridging the gap between lived experience and systems change, Amy has led major multi-stakeholder initiatives uniting patients, providers, payors, and policymakers around shared goals. After beginning her career with five years of direct care with people with chronic conditions, she spent more than a decade in patient-centered senior leadership roles at the American Cancer Society and National Multiple Sclerosis Society, overseeing advocacy, education and clinical partnerships. Then from 2012 to 2019, Amy served at the Academy of Integrative Pain Management (AIPM), then the nation’s largest professional pain organization, representing a diverse membership of healthcare professionals across more than three dozen disciplines involved in comprehensive, integrative pain care.

At AIPM, Amy created infrastructure to support the development of person-centered pain care policies through advocacy and multi-stakeholder collaboration. She envisioned and co-created the Consumer Pain Advocacy Task Force, a coalition of 17 patient advocacy organizations who came together and agreed on a singular goal to leverage their combined strengths around advancing patient care and research. She also developed the Pain Policy Congress, which convened 100 national leaders from 75 organizations—including representatives from federal agencies, payors, providers, and patient groups—to reach consensus on a definition of “comprehensive integrative pain management” and foster crucial education and connections.

Following AIPM’s closure in 2019, Amy was determined to continue this vital work. Through sheer determination, earned trust, and collaboration with other leaders, she secured a 4.5-year grant from the David and Lura Lovell Foundation, which supported the launch of the Alliance to Advance Comprehensive Integrative Pain Management. Building on that foundation, she now leads the Pain Collaborative to Advance Equitable, Value-Based Solutions, an initiative that cultivates strategic partnerships to expand access to high-quality, whole-person pain care.

Throughout her career, Amy has secured significant funding, supported patient-centered improvements to national and state policy, and contributed to advisory panels and public comments for agencies such as PCORI, NIH, AHRQ, and CMS. She is widely recognized for her strategic vision, ability to engage diverse stakeholders, and unwavering advocacy to improve quality of life through innovative, integrative, and sustainable healthcare solutions.

In addition to her national leadership, Amy maintains direct clinical work at both a local hospital and a hospice program, grounding her systems-level advocacy in the real-world experiences of patients and families. She thrives in interdisciplinary care settings and is known as a social worker who “digs in” to achieve meaningful outcomes for the people she so deeply cares about.

Amy was recently honored with the 2025 Patient Advocacy Award from the American Academy of Pain Medicine and serves as a study advisor on multiple federally funded research initiatives aimed at improving care for people living with pain.