NCMLP Receives $2 Million Grant from RWJF to Study Impact of Legal Interventions on Health Care
The National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership (NCMLP) at the Milken Institute School of Public Health today announced receiving a nearly $2 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to study the benefits of legal interventions on patients and healthcare organizations.
The grant was awarded to two investigators from the Department of Health Policy and Management: Ellen Lawton, JD, Lead Research Scientist, and Joel Teitelbaum, JD, LLM, Associate Professor. The research team also includes Marsha Regenstein, PhD, a Professor in the department.
“Three-hundred hospitals and health centers across the United States embed lawyers as part of the healthcare team to help treat complex social factors such as unlawful evictions and poor housing conditions, improper insurance denials, and domestic violence” said Lawton. “While there is significant anecdotal evidence to show these medical-legal partnerships (MLP) have a positive impact on patients and patient care, this grant allows us to look systemically at the operations and outcomes of these partnerships, and to understand how best to integrate these services into healthcare settings.”
The grant supports NCMLP’s work with five healthcare organizations that currently have medical-legal partnerships to: (1) measure the financial and social impact of MLP services on patients, examining factors such as increased insurance benefits and more stable housing; (2) describe the experiences and attitudes of patients and healthcare providers who interact with MLP to determine how these services affect care delivery; and (3) identify best practices in the operations of medical-legal partnerships in hospital and health center settings.
“As hospitals and health centers increasingly move toward a value-based care model, these findings will help healthcare organizations better understand the impact that treating complex social factors have on the broader delivery of health care,” said Regenstein. “It will help healthcare organizations make more targeted, effective investments in partnerships.”
The grant also supports the development of an issue brief series examining ways to finance these legal and MLP interventions as part of health care, specifically examining community benefit, population health management, and managed care reimbursement strategies.