The Knowledge to be Trusted

As I sat in my office on a fine summer morning, my mind started to wander back to my first days in National Health Corps (NHC) Philadelphia. Everything seems distant but also extremely valuable. I never thought that the Pre-Service orientation presentations were going to be useful so many months down the line but there I was, using every bit of the orientation information on a daily basis. One of the best lessons during those beginning days was how to correctly communicate with patients. Because over 60% of human communication is nonverbal, the proper way to communicate depends largely on the presence of the communicators. I found that first-time patients were often shy and uncomfortable at first. It is very understandable because they were at a foreign place trying to procure medication. They may have even felt vulnerable due to the personal nature of the application questions. For first-time patients, I always try to use my training to engage them in light-hearted conversation whenever possible in order to ease their nerves. Their trust in my position not only helps to smooth the medication’s application process but also strengthens my appeal when I reach out to them about preventative and management strategies.

The preventative strategies, oftentimes, is as simple as reducing the amount of cigarettes patients smoke per day. Other times, the management strategies require joint effort between me—the Patient Advocate, and another member of the healthcare team. An Example of this partnership would be between me and the Benefits Counselors, who help patients obtain their medical insurance, submit claims to the state department, and sometimes makes sure bills are paid in a timely fashion. While the Patient Assistance Program may alleviate the temporary stress of prescription billing, we unfortunately cannot offer patient enrollment beyond one year at a time. Without the Benefits Counselors, the patient would most like not be able to afford the treatments necessary to contain their symptoms in the future.

As the Medicaid plans increase their eligible population, ideally fewer patients will require our direct assistance with free medication. As such, our indirect assistance, such as guiding them to other essential services and advising them about general health improvements, becomes more and more important. I believe the best way to achieve this goal is to keep referring back to the orientation seminars like Trauma Informed or Mental First Aid and proper daily practices of patience, understanding, and engaging conversational skills. Trust is not an easy commodity to obtain, however, the trust I build with my patients is transferable to other areas in and out of the health center. And, I intend to use their trust in me, my health center as well as the healthcare system to the fullest extent.
 

This blog post was written by NHC Philadelphia member Y.C. Liu.
Y.C serves as a Patient Advocate at Philadelphia Department of Public Health-Ambulatory Health Services: Health Center 2.