SYMPOSIUM
LOS ANGELES PUBLIC INTEREST LAW JOURNAL
2 L.A. PUB. INT. L.J. 16
REMODELING THE MEDICAL HOME: INTEGRATING SAFETY NET SERVICES WITH HEALTHCARE DELIVERY Dennis Hsieh Hsieh discusses the integration of safety net services into the medical home. He argues that health professionals can work with safety net providers to improve health outcomes. To improve health outcomes, one cannot ignore these socioeconomic determinants of health. However, medical professionals are not traditionally trained to treat poverty. In contrast, safety net benefits such as Medicaid and food stamps are specifically designed to address these exact problems. Healthcare reform, with its requirement of healthcare coordination through the patient centered medical home, provides an ideal opportunity for healthcare providers to address the socioeconomic determinants of health. This can be achieved through integrating safety net services into the medical home so that health professionals can work with safety net providers to improve health outcomes. | AuthorDennis Hsieh is an Equal Justice Works Fellow at Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County (NLS) where he is the staff attorney at NLS’s medical legal community partnerships in South Los Angeles and Compton with St. John’s Well Child & Family Centers.
Dennis attended Harvard College and Yale Law School and is currently on a five year leave of absence from the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine. Dennis will return to UCSF in June 2010 to complete his medical training. Questions and comments can be directed to Dennis at dhsieh@gmail.com. This article is revised and updated based upon a concept paper submitted for credit in April 2008 for the class Child Development & the Law with Professor Anne Alstott at the Yale Law School. |
