Patient Advocacy Corner: Ready? Set? Go!

By: Ariel J. Warden-Jarrett, MD, FAAFP

Healthcare policy seems like a game of hide and seek. This is frustrating to patients and providers, as it seems like the game is rigged for the insurance company to always win. Patient advocacy helps to level the playing ground and happens to be one of my passions. As the current president of the Maryland Academy of Family Physicians, I continue to realize that for the state of our healthcare system to improve, we need people dedicated to framing the narratives of healthcare policy.

Get Ready

Advocacy experience has taught me that our legislators are moved by hearing the “stories” of their constituents. For example, If you feel passionate that medication costs are rising out of control and hindering your health, your legislative representatives should know about it. I once heard of a story where the legislator actually reached out to the drug company for a patient, and the cost was reduced to an affordable rate for the patient.

Get Set

At Maryland Primary Care Physicians, we have providers who take time to reach out to both state and federal legislators. But to be more effective, it helps if the providers and patients work collectively to advance the needle of healthcare progress.

The first step is to find out who your representatives are, then reach out. If your care was delayed because of a prior authorization, they should know, as this practice potentially hurts both providers and patients.

Learn to speak out! There are websites and smart phone applications that make it easy for you. Reach out on topics that you are passionate about.

Go!

This resource is a great place to start. You enter your address/zip code, and your state and federal legislators are listed. Clicking on their profiles gives you their contact information. Tell your stories! Let’s push the needle forward.

It’s time to inform the legislators who make decisions about your healthcare about how their policies are impacting you. Most of them do not have degrees in healthcare, yet their influence to vote on policies framing healthcare is powerful. They won’t know unless we reach out.

Keep reading your newsletter and emails. Share your stories, and together we can ignite to become a force of positive impact for our healthcare system.

Get Ready. Get Set. Go!