Patient Stories

To truly understand managing health, we need to hear first hand from patients to relate, emphathize and learn how to improve.

Addressing Non-Medical Determinants

• 78-year-old businessman with pain needed emotional needs addressed first (5/17/14)
• Mr. Jones had congestive heart failure, COPD, and a barrage of other chronic health problems. A visit to his home provided insight into why he was going to the ER each week (5/21/15)
• 39-year-old woman that is nearly blind and unable to walk more than a step or two, struggles to raise three sons while dealing with a daunting array of health conditions from diabetes to pain from bulging spinal disks. A non medical health worker offers to help. (3/9/16)

Caregivers

• When a family caregiver becomes injured, she learns the difficulties—and costs—of caring for herself and her chronically ill husband at the same time. (9/2014)

End of Life

• A patient dying of cancer was denied home treatment that would have improved her quality of life over her last few days and saved tens of thousands of dollars. (2/11/13)
• A frail, 94-year old women with with advanced Alzheimer’s has hip fracture surgery during her dying days due to poor communications (3/10/13)
• A hospital CEO learns that the standard of care isn't always appropriate when her 94 mother sustained a fall

Health Insurance Issues

• A patient suffering from an infected artificial shoulder couldn't afford intravenous antibiotics three times a day for six weeks in home. Medicare spent an unnecessary $30,000 on hospitalization and care rather than reimbursing for home care. (2/23/13)
• Medicare would only pay for an 84-year-old man's infusion therapy at a nursing home ($15,000) rather than at his home ($1,200). (2/23/14)
• A man suffers for a week in agony with kidney stones because of insurance access issues to physicians and services (12/11/15)

High-Need, High-Cost Patients

• Rebecca Bryson has 10 different medical conditions and depends on 13 health care providers. Her life improved when a program funded a Clinical Care Specialist and the creation of a Shared Care Plan.
• Forty-year-old Jeremie Seals was assigned a care manager and a regular physician that helped reduced his 15 ER visits and 11 hospitals stays to 4 ER visits and 4 hospitals stays the following year. (7/10/13)
• Virginia Hunt's story illustrates the effectiveness and ineffectiveness of our healthcare system that addresses conditions and often lacks capability to treat the overall patient. (3/3/13)

Medical Decisions - Quality of Life vs. Aggressive Interventions

• 70-year-old male with deteriorating congestive heart failure. Costly, aggressive route, could have caused more harm than good, comprising quality of life. (9/20/14)
• Vibrant 68-year-old woman from Haiti. She was always impeccably dressed, loved to talk, and had an incredibly infectious laugh. While the condition was cured, she was not. (6/6/16)

Patient Goals

• A doctor discovers an important question patients should be asked. “What are their goals?” (3/9/15)
• Patients become people through their social history (8/26/15)

Primary Care Physicians - Managing Health

• Patient went to Urgent Care rather than Primary Care Physician that knows her, costing almost $10,000 that was unnecessary (3/14/14)