The State Journal-Register: “Medical-legal partnership aims to improve health, quality of life”

Sunday, March 6, 2016

A new article in The State Journal-Register features the new medical-legal partnership in Springfield, Illinois — one of six programs that received HRSA enabling services funding in 2016.

“Medical-legal partnership aims to improve health, quality of life”

By Dean Olsen

“Helping low-income patients resolve problems with a landlord, get a divorce or qualify for federal disability benefits can improve overall health for them and their families just as much, and sometimes more, than a pill or surgery.

That philosophy, which stresses the importance of the “social determinants of health” — such as poverty and other circumstances in which people live and work — led Southern Illinois University School of Medicine to create a “medical-legal partnership” for its patients in the Springfield area.

Funded with $215,000 in federal grant funds this year and next, the partnership provides on-site legal services from lawyers at Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation to patients of the SIU Center for Family Medicine.”

Read the full article on The State Journal-Register’s website.