Providing Free Legal Help to Low-Income Cancer Patients
InCommons Collaboration Challenge
Providing Free Legal Help to Low-Income Cancer Patients
Cancer Legal Line and the University of Minnesota Masonic Cancer Center have collaborated over the last three years to provide much needed legal help, information and education to the Minnesotans receiving cancer care at the U. Often times the hardest part of having cancer is dealing with the financial, insurance and legal issues (employment, disability, estate planning--wills, trusts, guardianship) that arise following diagnosis. Overwhelmed and physically and emotionally depleted, cancer patients and their loved ones often ignore these nagging issues as they don't know where to turn for help and don't have the financial ability to hire an attorney. By collaborating, Cancer Legal Line and the Masonic Cancer Center have begun to change this dynamic for cancer patients in Minnesota via group presentations and referral consultations. We now envision the expansion of this collaboration to include on-site legal services provided to low-income cancer patients at the Masonic Cancer Center by Cancer Legal Line attorneys.
Contributor
Lindy Yokanovich2010-10-21 20:17
0 Comments
About You
About You
First Name
Lindy
Last Name
Yokanovich
Country
United States
About Your Organization
Organization
Cancer Legal Line
Organization Website
Organization Phone
651-472-5599
Organization Address
P.O. Box 93 Bayport MN 55003
Organization Country
United States, MN
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Your Story
Collaboration Title
Providing Free Legal Help to Low-Income Cancer Patients
Country your work focuses on
United States, MN
Describe your locally-based collaboration and the problem it sought to address
Cancer Legal Line and the University of Minnesota Masonic Cancer Center have collaborated over the last three years to provide much needed legal help, information and education to the Minnesotans receiving cancer care at the U. Often times the hardest part of having cancer is dealing with the financial, insurance and legal issues (employment, disability, estate planning--wills, trusts, guardianship) that arise following diagnosis. Overwhelmed and physically and emotionally depleted, cancer patients and their loved ones often ignore these nagging issues as they don't know where to turn for help and don't have the financial ability to hire an attorney. By collaborating, Cancer Legal Line and the Masonic Cancer Center have begun to change this dynamic for cancer patients in Minnesota via group presentations and referral consultations. We now envision the expansion of this collaboration to include on-site legal services provided to low-income cancer patients at the Masonic Cancer Center by Cancer Legal Line attorneys.
Tell us about the community in which this collaboration took place
The focus of the Cancer Legal Line/Masonic Cancer center collaboration is on the Minnesota cancer community regardless of gender, county of residence, age, income, or type of cancer.
Issue Selector
n/a
Partnership
Who was involved in co-creating or implementing your collaboration (other organizations, leaders, community members, etc.)?
The founder and executive director of Cancer Legal Line, Lindy Yokanovich, Esq. and Doug Yee, MD, Director of the Masonic Cancer Center, U of M have spearheaded this collaboration. This collaboration has been put into work every day by social workers, nurses and physicians throughout the Masonic Cancer Center who refer their patients to Cancer Legal Line and their volunteer attorneys.
To what extent does your collaboration involve partnerships that are outside or cross traditional organizational or sector boundaries?
The Cancer Legal Line/Masonic Cancer Center collaboration is breaking new ground in forging such a relationship between the disciplines of law and medicine. Realizing their patients' ultimate health outcomes are directly tied to their unmet legal needs being satisfied, providers at Masonic have embraced the work Cancer Legal Line has begun to provide in MN and is its main collaborator.
Innovation
What makes your locally-based collaboration innovative and unique?
Cancer Legal Line is the only organization providing targeted legal help to cancer patients and the U is one of the biggest oncology providers in the state, making our collaboration a synergistic one delivering targeted help to those in great need. While financial and legal issues faced by cancer patients have long existed, until this collaboration began to target meeting these needs in an effective and efficient way, people in need had no easy way to get this much needed help. With three years of experience behind us, the collaboration now seeks funding to expand our work. This expansion envisions a part-time attorney on-site at Masonic to provide direct service legal work (completion of simple wills, Powers of Attorney, Health Care Directives, guardianship, help with paperwork, etc) to low-income cancer patients. The efficiencies of being on-site can not be overstated. Not only can patients get this much needed help while at the same place/time they receive medical care, they can do so without having to wait for appointments, additional transportation or have the emotional/practical impediments of who to contact and worries about attorneys fees standing in their way.
Did you take risks in establishing this collaboration? Explain
The risks of the status quo continuing far outweighed the risks of joining together and creatively trying something new to make a critical difference in the lives of cancer patients.
How did this collaboration differ from the normal way of doing your work?
Pre-collaboration, Masonic did not provide legal referrals/help to their cancer patients in need. Cancer Legal Line is a young nonprofit who turned to the U at its inception as a way to spread the word about the new service we alone were providing to cancer patients in MN. The collaboration allows Cancer Legal Line to more effectively meet our mission, and Masonic an expanded definition of care.
Impact
How do you know your collaboration has been effective?
We know our collaboration has been effective from the words of thanks and life changing impact our work has had for the cancer patients and their loved ones with whom we have been able to work. From discussions at group presentations at the U's annual cancer conference at which Cancer Legal Line has presented for three years about how the information received in a 45 minute presentation answered questions that had kept survivors up on many a sleepless night with worry, to securing pro bono help from expert attorneys to assist a family whose child's cancer treatment had been denied coverage by their insurance carrier, there is no shortage of stories about the tremendous help our collaboration has fostered in just a few short years. With more direct service available, the sky is the limit.
What progress or impact has been made?
In three short years, our collaboration has resulted in a cross-discipline alliance that is dedicated to moving our work to the next level of help: providing direct legal service on-site at Masonic Cancer Center. Over 100 Masonic patients have received counseling and/or pro bono legal referrals and over 500 have attended group presentations on various legal topics impacting their survivorship.
Next Steps
How would you go about continuing, expanding, or replicating this collaboration?
With this application, the collaboration seeks funding to pay the salary of a part-time attorney to provide on-site legal services to cancer patients at the University of Minnesota Masonic Cancer Center. The services provided would be in the areas of simple wills, Powers of Attorney, Health Care Directives, guardianship, and paperwork assistance. To effectively and efficiently integrate this service into the existing framework of medical/oncology services, Cancer Legal Line will meet with social workers, nurse navigators and physicians to streamline the referral and intake procedures. By having a continuing, reliable and predictable presence on-site, existing relationships will deepen and new ones will be created allowing for more health care providers to become aware of the service and in turn, result in more cancer patients getting these critical legal needs met easily and efficiently.
Describe the current stage of implementation and desired next steps
The collaboration's current relationship is ongoing: providing group presentations at the University of Minnesota's Annual Cancer Survivorship Conference and serving as a reciprocal referral and assistance source for clients/patients. Critical relationships are in place, trust has been built, and dreams shared. The need for what the collaboration proposes by way of this application is borne out everyday by the clients we help: more is needed, patients sometimes can't wait to be out of the hospital to seek an attorney's help, and time is of the essence in getting these critical documents finalized. The implementation of the plan is simply awaiting funding to allow staff to be able to take on this additional work we are eagerly looking forward to doing. Cancer Legal Line has the internal resources, knowledge and expertise to be up and running with this proposal immediately. The Masonic Cancer Center has assured that they will do any and all they can do to move this forward. The next steps that would be needed are as follows (1)Meet with and establish protocol for referral and intake of patient-clients from Masonic health care providers (2) Create intake and representation documents (3) Establish days of week/hours when Cancer Legal Line attorney would be on-site at the Masonic Cancer Center (4) Notify various oncology providers at Masonic of on-site legal services (5) Apply for expanded professional liability insurance for provision of direct services (6)Secure any additional legal document software needed (7) Purchase portable printer compatible with existing laptop computers. Cancer Legal Line and the University of Minnesota Masonic Cancer Center would use the successful launch of the initiative we seek with this funding to further our end goal of creating a Medical-Legal Partnership with a full legal clinic staffed by 4-5 full time attorneys on-site at Masonic Cancer Center. The clinic would assist with even more wide-ranging legal issues such as housing, government benefits and immigration. The clinic would also utilize law students from the University's Law School to do intake and some supervised client counseling. Both members of the collaboration are trusted, known and respected throughout the cancer community. This innovative approach to comprehensive cancer care is simply awaiting funding. Thank you for this opportunity!
| 134 weeks ago Lindy Yokanovich updated this Competition Entry. | |
| 134 weeks ago Lindy Yokanovich submitted this idea. |
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