One Year, One Enrollment: Continuous Medicaid Eligibility Matters for Kids’ Health
New Findings Highlight the Value of 12-Month Eligibility in Reducing Care Gaps and Paperwork Burdens
In Their Own Words
My Brother’s Recovery From a Car Crash Became a Lesson in How to Talk to Doctors And Nurses
Communication is Part of Healing.
Print:
The following excerpt is from an op-ed that first appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer on September 19, 2023.
Shortly before Thanksgiving 2022, my brother, Elliott, was driving on a two-lane highway in New York when another car hit him head-on.
The other vehicle’s driver was critically injured, its two passengers dead. Paramedics rushed Elliott — disoriented, in pain, unable to contact anyone, and hundreds of miles from home — to the nearest Level I trauma center.
At the time of the accident, he had been on his way to visit friends. When Elliott did not arrive and could not be reached, those friends called local emergency departments until they found him.
They found my email address on the University of Pennsylvania’s website and sent word of the accident. They couldn’t provide me with any details because the hospital had only confirmed to his friends that Elliott was there — legally, the hospital wasn’t able to share more.
I study patient-doctor communication at Penn. The aftermath of Elliott’s accident underscored in personal ways what I know professionally: Communication is part of healing. There are lessons you can draw from our experience.
Read the entire op-ed here.
Author
Emily Largent, PhD, RN
Emanuel and Robert Hart Assistant Professor, Medical Ethics and Health Policy, Perelman School of Medicine; Lecturer, Carey Law School
Elliot Largent
Senior Quantitative Analyst, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia
More on Health Care Access & Coverage
Integrated Medicare Advantage Plans Cut Dropout Rates for Dual-Eligible Individuals
Chart of the Day: Fully Integrated D-SNPs Kept These Vulnerable Patients Enrolled, a New Study Finds
A Bold Plan to Fix Medicaid
Democrats Must Go Beyond Reversing Trump-Era Cuts With a New Strategy to Streamline Coverage, Reduce Waste, and Expand Access to Medicaid
Over 500 U.S. Hospitals Have Stopped Delivering Babies Since 2010
A Crisis in Maternal Care is Unfolding—and it’s Hitting Rural and Urban Communities Alike
Estimated Overdose Deaths Due to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act
Letter: Delivered to House Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader John Thune
Health Impacts of SNAP Provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act
Letter: Delivered to House Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader John Thune