Prescription pad meets legal pad

Doctors at SIU School of Medicine have a new tool for improving the health of low-income patients around Springfield: the ability to “prescribe” a lawyer.

SIU School of Medicine and Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance announced last week a “medical-legal partnership” meant to offer patients help dealing with legal issues affecting their health.

The program is funded by part of a $2.3 million federal grant and aimed at situations like housing hazards or unfair rules regarding public aid. It allows doctors at the SIU Center for Family Medicine in Springfield to refer patients to Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance for free legal aid when appropriate. Examples include things like peeling lead paint in a rented apartment, denial of insurance coverage or denial of public aid benefits. Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance is a nonprofit offering free legal aid across 65 Illinois counties.

Dr. Janet Albers, professor and chairwoman of the Department of Family and Community Medicine at SIU, says $215,000 of a grant from the federal Health Resources & Services Administration will go toward the medical-legal partnership over two years. Albers said the program is especially focused on households which earn less than 200 percent of the federal poverty line.

 “The funding is to bring people on site and create a procedural relationship between the doctors and attorneys,” she said. “Now we can work together in direct collaboration for the most vulnerable.”

The remainder of the grant goes toward separate programs at SIU: retinal screening for diabetes and expansion of a “care coordination” program, which offers case management for patients to prevent hospital readmissions.

Rachel Beckett, a staff attorney for Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance, says one example of a person who would benefit from the partnership is a child whose asthma is aggravated by mold in the apartment his parents rent. The child’s doctor would be one of the first people to recognize the threat posed by mold, Beckett said, and a doctor’s opinion goes a long way in court.

“The judges are used to hearing lawyers advocate for their side,” she said. “Then there’s this neutral person who brings science in, and people like that. … If a doctor comes in and says this six-year-old has asthma and can’t breathe, and he’s been in the hospital eight times in three months, I think that carries a little bit more weight.”

Albers noted a similar example.

“I might write a prescription for an asthmatic’s inhaler and then wonder why the child is not getting better,” she said. “When I find out it is because of mold in their apartment, but they may not have the power to get the landlord to fix it, all you need is that legal help. This empowers patients who may have no leverage to accomplish that for themselves.”

Beckett hopes the partnership can help people before they give up on fixing an issue affecting their health.

“One of the things that we see a lot is that people become disillusioned with the legal system, and we lose people,” she said. “When you catch people earlier, they’re not as disillusioned, and you’re able to help them with their problems. Maybe the problem isn’t as big, so you’re able to mitigate it a little earlier.”

Jim Sandman is the director of Legal Services Corporation, a national nonprofit created by Congress in 1974 to fund legal aid organizations like Land of Lincoln across the U.S. He says that without legal help, a person who represents herself in court has a low chance of success, especially if the other side has legal representation. In some areas of law such as landlord-tenant disputes, he said, 95 percent of landlords have legal representation, while 95 percent of tenants do not.

“Not surprisingly, it makes a difference whether you have a lawyer,” he said. “This is a huge invisible issue in our society. The public is unaware of the extent to which people are forced to navigate the legal system alone.”

Contact Patrick Yeagle at [email protected].