We live in a world where insurance governs the type of care we get. Often, practitioners’ hands are tied with respect to offerings beyond pharmacologic and surgical options. Patients are advised to lose weight, eat better, avoid certain medications that work to palliate our symptoms, and be active. This advice often comes without the resources and funding to do so while dealing with medical bills and bandwidth depletion after surgery and chronic illness. We must navigate around redundant red tape to ensure we are in-network, have not exceeded arbitrarily predetermined limits on vital therapeutics like physical therapy, all while trying to recover from the trauma of having a limb removed. Countless hours spent on the phone with insurance and other resources within the medical system, often leave patients tired and without direction.
We have long needed to serve the community better holistically, in an unchained way, from biased payer sources and options for the ultimate goal of truly addressing the barriers to care and providing the right kind of support at the right time. Simply writing “noncompliant” in medical charts with a blind eye towards solutions to the real problems at hand causing the lack of compliance was no longer an ethical option for the founder of Less Leg More Heart, Christina Hurley, who is a nationally certified Physician Assistant and amputee herself.
At this year’s Amputee Coalition National Conference, Less Leg More Heart will be hosting a session where you can learn how to assert yourself, navigate tricky social situations and expand your personal power as a patient.
Less Leg More Heart is a federally tax-exempt nonprofit created in early 2019 that is addressing the gaps in care for amputees. They do so by offloading suffering and spreading hope to the amputee community in four key ways, including peer mentorship, advocacy, funding for holistic approaches to care, and funding for vital home services.
Less Leg More Heart focuses on helping amputees and their loved ones navigate the rocky medical terrain, associated socioeconomic challenges, and psychosocial issues with a focus on education, connection, and wellness to promote their journey toward recovery in an expedited way. They provide amputees with vetted counsel, resources, goods, and certain funding after all beneficiaries are triaged through a comprehensive psychosocial and socioeconomic assessment. Thereafter, they offer a strategic allocation of awards based on the acuity and scope of their needs on an ongoing basis. The range of services are broad and customized, from nationally disseminated care packages to funding for home accessibility modifications, gym memberships, supplements, meal delivery and much more. To learn more, visit their website www.lesslegmoreheart.com and fill out the disability assistance form in the contact section if you are an amputee that needs more support.
Connect with Less Leg More Heart at the Amputee Coalition National Conference on Friday, August 12th, 2022, at 8:15am.