This article published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine describes ways that medical-legal partnership services can reduce hospitalizations and save on health care costs. It details steps to integrate medical-legal partnership activities into value-based healthcare financing streams.

This article published in the Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved reports on a study of 110 adult patients admitted to a safety-net public hospital beyond medically predicted length of stay. Each adult was assessed for health-harming legal needs and referred for MLP legal services if indicated. The assessment found that lack of guardianship was specifically associated with increased excess length of stay. Over a one year period, the MLP was able to reduce length of stay for some patients and cost-analysis showed savings in excess of $200,000.

A medical-legal partnership at an academic medical center (AMC) in North Carolina measured the detailed cost savings it provided to the AMC through the provision of legal services to its patients. MLP partners identified guardianship-related delays as the primary driver of extended lengths-of-stay at the AMC. When an MLP attorney was able to expedite guardianship proceedings, they reduced a patient’s lengths-of-stay by approximately 20 days. This led to an annual cost savings of $1,237,500 for the AMC based on an average cost of $825 per day for the hospital for 75 patients requiring guardianship services. Cost savings from these reduced lengths-of-stay alone exceeded MLP program costs by over threefold. The findings were published in The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics.