In this episode, Jamie and Scott Middleton break down the chronically undervalued world of social services in healthcare — from social determinants of health and advanced care planning to mental health access, food deserts, and the billing realities that determine whether patients actually get help. The sobering through-line: a man was being wheeled toward a radiation treatment in his final hours of life because no one on his care team had started the one conversation that could have changed everything.

The Disrupted Podcast

[email protected] (Jamie Preston, Scott Middleton)

Social Services

APR 10, 202635 MIN
The Disrupted Podcast

Social Services

APR 10, 202635 MIN

Description

A man is dying — literally in his last hour, the death rattle audible — and the hospital team arrives to take him for a radiation treatment. His family had no idea. No one had told them. No one had started the conversation. This is not a rare exception. This is what happens when social services is treated as an afterthought. In this episode of The Disrupted Podcast, host Jamie Preston and Scott Middleton, Owner and Chief Disruption Officer of Your Health, go deep on one of the most overlooked levers in healthcare — social services. From the social determinants that drive healthcare costs more than healthcare itself, to the care team structures Your Health is building to close the gap, this is a candid, unfiltered look at what's broken, what's possible, and what it actually costs when we don't act. What you'll hear in this episode: Why social determinants of health — food access, medication literacy, housing instability, social isolation — are the real drivers of healthcare spending, and why most systems still ignore them The truth about advanced care planning: why it's quietly dropping, why every patient within two to three years of death needs that conversation, and the story of Janet Denino's cousin that makes the cost of silence impossible to ignore How the mental health stigma is shifting generationally — and how telehealth, AI-assisted tools, and a smarter therapy cadence are changing who actually gets support The billing math behind 280,000 possible care management hours that were built down to 110 — and why that gap isn't just a business problem, it's a human one What it actually takes to build a social services program that works: the right roles, the right ratios, and why getting out to see patients is non-negotiable The system won't fix itself. But the people in it can. This episode shows you how. www.YourHealth.Org