Addressing Economic Drivers of Health in the Clinic: The Role and Potential of Medical-Financial Partnerships

Poverty and financial insecurity are major drivers of poor health outcomes, but health systems have traditionally lacked the tools to address these economic drivers of health. In recent years, an innovative clinical care model is starting to change that: Medical-Financial Partnerships (MFPs). Medical-Financial Partnerships are collaborations between health care systems and financial services providers. They connect patients to a variety of financial services including financial coaching, free tax preparation, and public benefits navigation. These services have been shown to significantly improve health and financial well-being. In addition, MFPs provide effective and welcome access points for under-utilized social service and anti-poverty public benefits programs. Most MFPs are grant-funded, but given their benefits to patient health and social service access, they may be able to grow by attracting investments from social service providers, healthcare systems, and payors as well. Finally, MFPs transcend the limitations of the traditional medical model and can even transform it in important ways. First, they use strengths-based approaches like financial coaching and motivational interviewing in a medical model that relies heavily on problem-based diagnoses to organize, prioritize, and incentivize care. Second, they bring community-level resources and interventions to a medical system that operates primarily at the individual-level. Third, they bring upstream health interventions like financial supports and policy advocacy to a medical model that focuses on more downstream causes of illness. Overall, MFPs represent an important and effective set of tools and a novel approach to health promotion within a broader health care strategy to address the economic and structural drivers of health.