A System-Level Approach to Addressing Health-Harming Legal and Social Needs

A System-Level Approach to Addressing Health-Harming Legal and Social Needs

The medical-legal partnership (MLP) approach seeks to embed patient-facing lawyers as part of the standard of health care to ensure that these factors are efficiently addressed. The largest medical-legal partnership in the country — between NYC Health + Hospitals (NYC Health + Hospitals) and the LegalHealth division of the New York Legal Assistance Group (LegalHealth) — embodies the importance of linking patients to crucial legal services in order to improve health and well-being by recognizing that good legal “care” is consistent with their mission. The medical-legal partnership serves as an example to other public or non-profit hospital systems that may be interested in incorporating legal services into a holistic strategy to address the health-harming social and other non-medical factors that affect their patients.

This case study is an outgrowth of a January 2018 webinar and a September 2018 site visit, both of which delved into the inner-workings of the NYC Health + Hospitals LegalHealth partnership for the purpose of understanding (1) how the use of patient-facing legal services fits into NYC Health + Hospitals leadership’s overall mission and (2) how LegalHealth structures a variety of legal clinics across the NYC Health + Hospitals system to meet the legal needs of many different types of marginalized patients.

Share this post

Related Articles

Testimony: FY 26 Preliminary Budget for Hospitals

NYLAG’s Interim Director of our LegalHealth Unit, Julie Brandfield, submitted testimony about FY 26’s preliminary budget to the New York City Council’s Committee on Hospitals, specifically making the case for continued support for legal services in hospitals through the Immigrant Health Initiative (IHI): LegalHealth’s medical legal partnership model allows patients to receive direct referrals and […]
The post Testimony: FY 26 Preliminary Budget for Hospitals appeared first on New York Legal Assistance Group.

Read More »

Norwood News: NYC Health + Hospitals Expands Legal Services for Patients

New York City Health + Hospitals announced the expansion of its medical-legal partnership with NYLAG’s LegalHealth division to address a variety of patients’ health-harming legal needs. Randy Retkin, LegalHealth Unit Director, shared with Norwood News the importance of this partnership in providing legal services in our public hospitals.
The post Norwood News: NYC Health + Hospitals Expands Legal Services for Patients appeared first on New York Legal Assistance Group.

Read More »

Testimony: The Experiences of Black Migrants in New York City

Monica Tulchinsky, Senior Staff Attorney in the LegalHealth division of NYLAG, testified in favor of Introduction 0085-2024A, a bill to require the City to develop and issue an annual health survey of newly arrived immigrants and asylum seekers.
The post Testimony: The Experiences of Black Migrants in New York City appeared first on New York Legal Assistance Group.

Read More »
Scroll to Top