Integrating Advocacy into Your Practice

Abstract

In the last 60 years, health care has evolved due to many trends including the introduction of third-party payers, a progressively aging society, advancing technology, emerging recognition of social issues of race/gender/poverty, the relative decline in the physician workforce, rising health care costs, ongoing consolidation of health care entities, and the corporatization of health care delivery. This has led to problems in health care delivery with respect to cost, quality, and access. Many medical leaders feel it is now the duty of the physician to go beyond the classic patient-doctor clinical responsibility and work to advocate for their patients and society regarding economic, financial, educational, and social issues.

Keywords: Advocacy; Doctor-patient relationship; Ethics; Government; Philanthropy; Politics.