Diagnostic Testing Inequities | Impact of Social Determinants of Health for Sickle Cell Patients
In this program:
How do social determinants of health impact diagnostic testing equity? Sickle cell advocates John Masembe and Jemela Williams share their perspectives.
Transcript
Jemela Williams:
Yeah. That's great, those are some great takeaways for patients, families, and doctors as well, yeah that was wonderful. So how do you think social determinants of health, such as income, education, or insurance coverage, contribute to the inequities in accessing and receiving timely diagnostic tests?
John Masembe:
Funding to the therapies that are available. The advancement in those therapies has been pretty slow, but we are getting there. So that plays a role, so income and then education on both the patient...on both the provider setting and also on the patient and family side as well. So it goes both ways whereby doctors and providers need to be, patients...and let me start from the patients and families, patients can learn about what their rights are, can speak about what their experiences are and talk about the issues that are important to them and their goals. And then on top of that too, educating the doctors. And say, "Hey, when you are interacting with specific populations or patient populations, these are the issues that are important to them. These are, and I challenge doctors all the time, what can you do to improve the quality of care you're delivering for your patients? And most importantly, not systemic but individualized care because every patient is different.
So you may not be able to change everybody's situation, but being patient and sensitive and compassionate to your patients is really, really important to them, so that's the education piece. That's really, that would...that I believe will help in the social determinants of health part. And then insurance and coverage, I can't really speak so much on that, but there are a lot of those issues really go under the same umbrella of knowledge and knowing if you don't know what your insurance is, go to your patient financial services department. They know how they will help you navigate through what your insurance benefits are. If you are on Medicare or Medicaid, there's a number at the back of your card, feel free to talk to call that number. But there's a patient advocacy department or a financial department at every hospital. They should be able to help you find some kind of coverage if you're struggling. And all hospitals do have financial charity care. I'm not going to say all, but most of them do. So don't ever feel like you could, if you can't afford to pay for something, apply for charity care, do it, or talk to somebody or a social worker that will help you do it. I think that will help. I don't know if I answered the question regarding timely diagnostic tests. I don't know what's your experience, Jemela?
Jemela Williams:
Well, my experience, most, yeah, it's been timely. My doctors are very...the doctors I've had have been very involved in my care fortunately, and they usually call if not the day after, two, maybe three days at the most. Especially my primary care doctor's assistant, she's very involved. If you call her the same day, she's going to call you right back, and she'll call me the next day, and it'll actually be my doctor who calls me and goes over the test with me. When I'm at the hematology office, that was my previous doctor, I just recently changed to the sickle cell clinic. But they'd always give me a copy of my labs, go over it with me. I think that's really important because even though we're, as sickle cell patients, we've been drilled into most of us, this is your hemoglobin. This is this, this should be here. There's still things that we don't fully know, we don't fully understand. So I think it's really important for doctors, providers to go over that with you, even community organizations to educate patients about that. But my experience has been pretty great, with timely receiving diagnostic tests so far. But I think that's really great information that you said. Most hospitals have patient charity care because I know definitely a lot of patients, regardless of sickle cell, cancer, whatever ever disorder they have, don't exactly know that. So I think these were really great tips for patients and families. Thank you, John.
John Masembe:
Yeah.
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