This is Red Flag Hero.
RFH is a shared publication featuring the voices of leading health care experts, clinicians, health insurance advisors, dissidents, dreamers, activists and one Emergency Medicine PA who refuses to give up hope for systemic change.
I’m not unique.
Or special.
Like so many people in the country, I grew up poor as sh*t - without health insurance and without predictable access to healthcare.
The emergency room WAS my “primary care doctor.”
I was anxious & scared all the time, yet ‘non-compliant’ w/meds & follow up.
And even if I’d understood what needed done & how, I couldn’t afford it anyway.
My family and my community had the f*cking audacity to be poor, so that’s just how it goes.
And now things are so out of control and hard to manage that no one is safe.
Today, who doesn’t know someone whose life has been threatened or ruined by the ‘healthcare’ system?
The stories are everywhere.
The untreated mental health problems that turn into addiction, or suicide.
The rationed insulin that becomes an ER visit, a hospitalization & bankruptcy.
The family member that’s lost to homelessness & despair because they have no idea what else to do.
The tragedies are never-ending.
I had dinner with an ER doc last week, a friend, who told me that she’d recently diagnosed a patient with cancer in the ER.
Patient was a stay-at-home dad between health insurance plans.
She was upset because she wasn’t convinced that he would have the courage, the money & the knowledge that he would need to get the life-saving follow-up care he needed to see his kids go to college.
She thought it was possible that he might eventually decide that his wife and kid would be better off if he were dead instead of ‘driving their family into debt for his treatment.’
Because of this tiny, niche community I’ve found - I had ideas.
And when I explained a handful of viable options for affording care & navigating the process specific to his particular case,
She was speechless.
Shocked.
She had no idea that there was a parallel universe being created in real time to solve issues exactly like this one.
She didn’t know because almost no one does.
How many people are sitting contemplating horrible, horrible tragic things because they don’t even know what they don’t know?
Solutions exist, but we’ve already given up.
We’ve given in to a system that is too expensive, too complex & too overwhelming to navigate -so much that suicide seems like a ‘reasonable option’ to an ER DOCTOR.
It’s a sh*t hand that no one deserves, but most (even the insured) find yourselves in.
It took me decades, to crawl out of poverty and thank God by way of the NFL, German medical school, research at Hopkins, and eventually rural ERs on the Maryland & Delaware coasts, I found the strength and the community I’ve been looking for.
And since then, I’ve traveled the country speaking to patients, health care experts, policy makers, doctors, PAs, nurses and health insurance gurus looking for answers and I’m finding them.
Reforming the American Healthcare System
And while the stories that I hear are heartbreaking.
Solutions are everywhere.
They go counter to the narratives that we’ve been taught since childhood, and they require us to take ownership and responsibility for what happens to us, but they are waiting patiently - poised & waiting for us to grab hold.
My only goal in publishing this letter is to make you aware of the power that you already have over your own body and your own health journey.
The power that I know you aren’t using only because you don’t know how yet.
I want to share everything I’ve learned so you don’t have to live without hope or direction any more.
In case I’m not being clear, here’s what I’m saying.
YOU are the only decision maker that matters.
YOU are the f*cking boss.
Not your doctor.
Not your employer.
Not your pharmacist.
Not the insurance company.
It starts and ends with you - it always has.
They say parenting doesn’t have a handbook, and it doesn’t (as far as I know), but being a patient doesn’t have one either,
It’s time for that to change.
Join me for imperfect discussions, ideas and strategy to inform and empower your health and healthcare journey.
I want to change the world, but I’ve learned that I can’t.
Because it has to start with you.
You can.
LFG.
Be part of a community of people who share your interests - participate in the comments section, or support this work with a subscription.
No matter what, I’m glad you’re here.
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What everyone needs, Tiffany! Understanding how to be the boss of their life.
We were blessed to have my mom share our home for the last twenty years of her life, and I became her healthcare advocate.
Please understand. My Mama Peggy was a badass who was a git-er-done gal, but the healthcare took her for granted the last ten years of her long life.
Even though she was hard of hearing, she was an athlete who had gotten older.
I kept thinking that every elder needed someone to stand up for them. How can they do it alone?
Very interested in learning more and following along on your journey! Why the name "red flag" hero?