The Health Law Partnership (HeLP), a community collaboration between healthcare providers and lawyers that works to improve the health and well-being of low-income children and their families, was approved as a Medical-Legal Partnership (MLP) by the Georgia Department of Community Health (DCH).
Although 46 states have health centers and hospitals that operate medical-legal partnerships, Georgia is only the second, after New York, to have codified medical-legal partnerships into state law. Having statutory recognition of the partnerships opens the door to potentially obtaining funding and grants, said director of HeLP and clinical professor of law Sylvia Caley (M.B.A. ’86, J.D. ’89).
The designation is possible because of Caley and students enrolled in her 2013-14 Health Legislation and Advocacy class, who researched and drafted the initial bill that was introduced in the House and eventually signed into law by Gov. Deal.
“HeLP sought to obtain this recognition as part of a plan for long-term sustainability, and as such made passage of legislation a systemic advocacy priority,” Caley said. “I also thought it would help encourage other health care systems in the state to start a medical-legal partnership if we potentially could facilitate access to future financial resources to support their development.
“People think MLPs are a great idea—adding a lawyer to the health care team to address health-harming social determinants, but where is the money going to come from to support the lawyers?” Caley said. “We make ourselves more attractive to grant funders if we have a stamp of approval by the state that we run a medical-legal partnership that meets certain requirements.”
Unbeknownst to Caley when she decided to make the effort a class project, one of her students was Rep. Trey Kelley (J.D. ’14) of Georgia House District 16. Kelley, who has a large hospital in his district, saw the utility of medical-legal partnerships as a way to provide more comprehensive health care solutions for people.
“I bought into the bill personally and philosophically,” said Kelley, an attorney with Parker & Lundy in Cedartown. “If there is a way to deliver more effective treatment to someone to reduce the number of ER visits the mother makes with a child we need to pursue it. I thought ‘Let me take a swing at this.’”
Kelley, Bryan Jacoutot (J.D. ’14), and Kimberly Ramseur (M.P.H. ’15) performed the background legal research, drafted the proposed legislation, and then introduced the House version of the bill, HB 910, in 2014.
The bill passed in the House but stalled in the Senate. So, Kelley got the medical-legal partnerships legislation attached to Senate Bill 352, which, among other items, created the Georgia Council on Lupus Education and Awareness. The bill overwhelmingly passed. Gov. Deal signed it into law on April 21, 2014.
“It was a big step in the right direction,” said Jacoutot, an attorney with Taylor English Duma. “MLPs have a seal of approval from the state of Georgia to work together. Now funding may come down the pike.”
Under the legislation, the Georgia Department of Community Health is authorized to approve medical-legal partnerships that meet and comply with standards and guidelines established by the department for purposes of determining eligibility for grants available through the state or from other sources. The department finalized the standards in late fall 2017. The standards developed by the department require that:
The medical-legal partnerships be conducted or established by a nonprofit entity, have a written agreement executed by all participating representatives of the medical service provider(s) and the legal services program(s) engaged in the MLP.
The written agreement must address operational issues, such as types of cases handled by the medical-legal partnerships, the process for referring patients/clients to the partnerships, income eligibility for patients/clients, provision of legal services to eligible patients/clients at no charge, agreement by the medical service providers to identify on-site space for use by the partnership, agreement to adhere to patient/client confidentiality, agreement to handle complaints promptly, and an explanation of how and on what basis a party may terminate the agreement.
In addition to providing a coordinated and integrated set of services to address the multiple determinants of children’s health, HeLP is also an educational project that promotes interdisciplinary teaching and learning.
In the HeLP Clinic, a collaboration among Georgia State University College of Law, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and Atlanta Legal Aid Society, and other community partners, which include Morehouse School of Medicine and Emory University School of Medicine, students from multiple professions work side by side on cases involving childhood disability, housing conditions, education, access to healthcare and the drafting of wills and advanced directives.
