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Review
. 2017 Mar 23;13(3):282-291.
doi: 10.1177/1559827617698417. eCollection 2019 May-Jun.

Medical-Legal Partnership in Primary Care: Moving Upstream in the Clinic

Elizabeth Tobin Tyler  1
Affiliations
Review

Medical-Legal Partnership in Primary Care: Moving Upstream in the Clinic

Elizabeth Tobin Tyler. Am J Lifestyle Med. .

Abstract

Medical-legal partnership (MLP) is a health care delivery innovation that embeds civil legal aid expertise into the health care team to address health-harming legal needs for vulnerable populations at risk for poor health. The MLP approach focuses on prevention by addressing upstream structural and systemic social and legal problems that affect patient and population health. Because many unmet legal needs affect health (such as residing in substandard housing; wrongful denial of government income supports, health insurance, or food assistance; family violence; and barriers to care based on immigration status), lawyers are important members of the health care team. This review describes the MLP approach to addressing the social determinants of health, examines its benefits for improving the delivery of primary care for vulnerable patients and populations, and explores new opportunities for MLP in primary care with the advent of systems reforms driven by the Affordable Care Act.

Keywords: health reform; medical-legal; primary care; social determinants of health; vulnerable populations.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting Interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
How Civil Legal Aid Helps Health Care Address the Social Determinants of Health.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Impact of Medical-Legal Partnerships in Health Centers.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
MLPs Strengthen Value-Based Strategies. Abbreviation: MLP, medical-legal partnerships.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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