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Campaign: Health Needs Navigation

People Need People to Navigate Our Health Care System

Who has helped you get through our complicated health care system?

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Join Our Campaign

We want everyone—your family members, friends, colleagues, neighbors and strangers—to understand the importance of financial and social needs navigation services, so that we begin building public-demand for it. 

Our ultimate goal is to embed financial and social needs navigation services in our hospitals and health systems, and we need your help to get there.

 

What is Needs Navigation?

It’s people helping people.

We use “needs navigation” to describe the array of services that help people navigate our complex healthcare system to address their most pressing financial, social or other essential needs. 

Take Action

  • Become an official partner. We invite everyone to sign our Needs Navigation petition which calls on our elected officials as well as healthcare and community leaders to come together to build a better healthcare system that ensures we all get the help we need to address our basic needs. For organizations, sign our Statement of Principles which describes the policy principles that we believe will best integrate needs navigation within our healthcare system. 
  • Advocate in your community for needs navigation. Our campaign toolkit breaks down the specific actions you can take to help us communicate the significance of making financial and social needs navigation services a part of mainstream healthcare. The toolkit also includes a conversation guide and email templates to help you share our resources.
  • Share your story. You have a powerful story to share about your experiences navigating the healthcare system. Allow us to amplify your experiences to strengthen the case for embedding financial and social needs navigation services throughout our health care system.

Sharing Your Story

Video testimonials are capped at three minutes. 

Share Your Experience

Could you or someone you know have benefitted from navigation support services while receiving care? When receiving care, did you have an advocate help you: navigate financial support services, enroll in health insurance, identify medical billing assistance programs or help you with workplace services and support?

Support our efforts to embed navigation services within our health care system by sharing your story below.

Quick Tips for Submitting Your Story

  1. Identify the challenge you have experienced as a patient, caregiver and/or provider. What health needs navigation problem did you encounter?
    • Example: “When I received my diagnosis, I thought I had to pay everything out-of-pocket.”
  2. Identify the choice you made to improve or correct that obstacle. What made you want to take action?
    • Example: “I knew that if I wanted to improve the process, I had to do something about it”
  3. Identify the opportunity for action you see, embedding needs navigation services within our health care system. What actions can people take?
    • Example: “I began volunteering with NPAF and educating others about health needs navigation services and why it should be built into our health care system. You can do that same!”

Quick Tips for Submitting a Video  

*Video and script submissions are sent and captured securely through the Boast platform.

  1. Eliminate background noise: Record in a quiet place, with minimal interruptions.
  2. Balance lighting: Make sure that the lighting in the video is neither dim nor too bright and that people can clearly see your face.
  3. Level recording: Make sure that your head and shoulders are both in view.

If you’re having trouble figuring out what to say, introduce yourself and tell us why this campaign is important to you:  

Example 1: “Hi! I’m (name) and I’ve been volunteering at National Patient Advocate Foundation for [insert time]. When I received my diagnosis, I thought I had to pay everything out-of-pocket. I wasn’t aware support services existed to help me pay for utilities and transportation, without needing to sacrifice essential care. I decided that I wanted to make sure no one else goes through what I did and embedding needs navigation services within our health care system is a great way to start…”

Example 2: ““Hi! I’m (name) and I’ve been volunteering at National Patient Advocate Foundation for [insert time]. As a provider, I understand the complexities that come with navigating our health care system, especially for patients and caregivers. We need to change that. We often mistakenly view a diagnosis separate from the person, when in reality, one impacts the other. We need to embed needs navigation services within our health care system to both improve overall health outcomes for patients and…” 

 

Collect feedback with Boast

NPAF’s grassroots campaigns are a core part of our Patient Action League (PAL) program made possible by generous support from the following sponsors:  Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer.

Resources

Creating a Shared Future: Eliminating Bias in Treatment and Access

Please join us for an incredible event featuring keynote speaker Dr. Don Berwick as we discuss the remarkable advancements in modern medical treatments -- and who will actually have access to them.