Jeff Weinberg, patient advocate, on how to navigate the health care system
When someone is being discharged from a hospital, Weinberg steps in to help them choose follow-up providers and get their important medical questions answered.
If you feel abused or beaten down by dealing with your health care providers, Jeff Weinberg is the man to know.
A former director of geriatric services for Excela Health in Westmoreland County, Weinberg is a health care patient advocate — and he’s nationally certified to do the job.
Weinberg also is the author of a new book, “The Emperor Needs News Clothes: Or, Why Caring Has Disappeared from Healthcare,” which teaches new clients and those curious about how best to operate in a changing world of service times and reimbursements. He said he gets a lot of “a-ha!” responses from clients who have read the tome.
“A lot of people who’ve read it say, ‘Oh, I should’ve read this before!’” he said.
As a patient advocate, Weinberg, who runs Caregiver Champion, helps clients and patients talk to doctors, especially in these changing times.
A generation ago, a doctor typically would spend a lot of time with a patient, talking about symptoms and answering questions. Today, most doctors allot less than 7 minutes to see a patient, Weinberg said.
“Sometimes, you can’t even say ‘Good morning!’ because your time is up,” Weinberg said.
Hospitals also have changed.
When Weinberg was younger, an immediate family member of his suffered a heart attack and spent nearly two months in the hospital. Today, someone opting to undergo heart surgery may be out of cardiac care the next day and out of rehab in less than a week, he said.
“All of that is based on reimbursement,” Weinberg said. “People don’t have time to care.”
Enter the patient advocate.
When someone is being discharged from a hospital, Weinberg steps in to help them choose follow-up providers and get their important medical questions answered.
“I tell people, ‘You need to have a list of questions, and you need to get them answered,’” Weinberg told the Chronicle. “You have to insist that these questions must be answered.”
Don’t want to hire a patient advocate? Weinberg recommends bringing a spouse or close friend to the discharge when you take out your list of questions. The added perspective helps.
“The whole idea is to get the information you need so you can make an intelligent decision,” Weinberg said.
Weinberg also works in nursing homes. He speaks from experience as a former first vice president of Pittsburgh’s Jewish Association on Aging.
When it comes to nursing homes, Weinberg has a simple recommendation: Go online and find Medicare’s system of rating the various homes. Five-star rating? Feel a little better about checking it out. One star? Maybe you should keep looking.
Weinberg, who works out of his home in Squirrel Hill, has been in the health care field for more than 25 years. And what has the big lesson been during that time?
“In the period of 25 years, the quote-unquote ‘caring’ has disappeared,” he said. “People just don’t have the time … so, people just get pushed aside and told what to do.”
But, Weinberg stressed, it doesn’t have to be that way. PJC
Justin Vellucci is a freelance writer living in Pittsburgh.
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