Unlike Medicare or Medicaid, Ryan White Grant programs are the “payer of last resort,” which fund treatment for HIV/AIDS positive patients when no other resources are available. The Ryan White program serves over half-a-million people each year across the nation. In 2016, 551,567 clients received services from close-to 3,000 funded grant recipients and subrecipients.

The US Congress created the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency (CARE) Act. Named in honor of Ryan White, an Indiana teenager who contracted AIDS through a tainted hemophilia treatment in 1984, the Act sought funding to improve availability of care for low income, uninsured and under-insured victims of AIDS and their families. Ryan was expelled from school because of the disease and became a well-known advocate for AIDS research and awareness, until his death on April 8, 1990.

The Virginia AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP) provides access to life-saving medications for the treatment of HIV and related illnesses for low-income clients through the provision of medications or through assistance with insurance premiums and medication co-payments.

The program is primarily supported with federal Ryan White (RW) Treatment Extension Act Part B grant funding, which is distributed by a formula based on living HIV and AIDS cases to all states and territories in the United States.