When I was recently diagnosed with an unexpected chronic health problem, I faced two shocks. The first was the medical malady itself. The second shock was the admonition by my physician that I would need to follow “managed care.”
Managed care — in today’s environment of overbooked doctors and ever-briefer hospital stays — means the patient is the manager of his or her own care. But where do millions of people like me turn to understand treatment options and assess in an unbiased way the best path to improved health?
Increasingly, nonprofit organizations are springing up that can play a major role in helping patients make those assessments.
“The fact is that doctors do not have the time, and often lack the skillsand inclination, to do extensive counseling with patients about their choices,” said Floyd Fowler, president of the Foundation for Informed Medical Decision Making.
The foundation’s mission, Fowler said, is to help patients know when medical decisions need to be made and get the objective, unbiased information they need to make informed choices.
“With all of the information that is out there, you need to form a partnership with your medical team to seek unbiased information that can help you manage your disease,” said Nancy Roach, chairman of the board of directors of the D.C.-based Colorectal Cancer Coalition.
Roach’s group supports research as well as public awareness that colorectal cancer is preventable and treatable. Organizations tapped into the latest studies can help patients ask “the kind of questions that you should be asking but may not know enough about a disease yet to formulate,” she said.
“They can help you and your family translate this information in a way that is unbiased, science-based and understandable,” Roach told The Examiner.
But patients are still ultimately responsible for their own care, and they need to evaluate as many information sources as possible.
“Being not-for-profit is an important, but not sufficient, condition for assuring others of the credibility and objectivity of information that is provided,” Fowler said. He pointed out that there are many for-profit organizations that have major investments in which treatments people receive and which medicines they take, and those organizations are major providers of the information that people are exposed to about their treatment options.
Have information about area nonprofits? Contact Frank Sietzen at [email protected].
