You Shouldn’t Have to “Know a Guy” to Find Your Way Around Healthcare

Every so often, I get a call or text from a friend or family member: “Paari, can I ask you a healthcare question?”

This has happened throughout my career, often with people who live nowhere near me. Sometimes they need help finding the right specialist. Sometimes they’ve already seen someone but aren’t sure what should happen next. And often, they’ve been told they must wait weeks or even months for an appointment.

Waiting can be frightening when you don’t know whether it’s safe to wait. Sometimes I can reassure them that the delay is unlikely to make their condition worse. Other times, I believe they need to be seen sooner, but there simply isn’t an appointment available.

I try to help them understand the urgency, find the right next step and navigate the system.

I’m happy to help. After spending my career in healthcare, I understand better than most how the system works, and I usually know whom to call.

But I always wonder: What happens to the people who don’t “know a guy”?

Imagine getting a frightening diagnosis or living with pain that won’t go away. You’re told to see a specialist, schedule a test and follow up with another office. Which call comes first? What if the first specialist isn’t the right one? Who is helping you understand how urgently you need to be seen? And who’s making sure all the pieces fit together?

Too often, the answer is: you are.

Weeks go by on the wrong path. Appointments happen in the wrong order. Some people fall through the cracks entirely. Navigating healthcare can be a very lonely experience.

Our vision for GBMC is to become a highly coordinated system of care. That may sound like healthcare language, but what it means is actually very simple.

A patient shouldn’t have to understand how GBMC is organized to get the right care. You shouldn’t have to know which office to call first, which specialist you need or how all the pieces fit together. The system should do the connecting for you.

We aren’t there yet everywhere. But our cancer program already shows what this can look like when we get it right.

Patients arrive at the Sandra and Malcolm Berman Cancer Institute in different ways. A screening shows something concerning. A primary care physician makes a referral. Someone diagnosed elsewhere wants a second opinion.

However they find us, our team knows how to take it from there, bringing the right experts together and guiding the patient through the right sequence of tests and treatment.

Many of those services are located in the Sandra R. Berman Pavilion, with others just steps away in the hospital. It was intentionally designed that way, so patients would not have to coordinate cancer care alone.

And the support doesn’t stop with the treatment plan.

How will I get to my appointments? How will I pay for this? Who is going to help my family?

Our Oncology Support Services team helps patients answer those questions through social work, financial navigation, support groups, survivorship programs and mind-body therapies, all available at no charge.

It isn’t just treating the cancer. It’s taking care of the person who has it, and the people who love them.

I think of Dan Colhoun, a Baltimore County farmer diagnosed with cancer at the base of his tongue. Several oncologists recommended surgery. But Dan was 82, and what mattered most to him was remaining independent and working the farm he and his wife had run since 1960.

GBMC radiation oncologist Dr. Geoffrey Neuner listened. He recommended beginning with radiation and turning to surgery only if it became necessary.

It worked. Dan completed treatment without surgery and went back to his tractor.

What stays with me is that his physician asked what mattered most to him and built the plan around the answer.

That’s care built around Dan.

Cancer care provides a model, but coordination should not begin and end with cancer. As we strengthen other parts of GBMC, we’re asking a simple question: How do we bring that same coordination to more of our patients?

Take musculoskeletal care, which is a fancy way of saying bones, joints, muscles and how you move. Someone living with persistent knee, back or neck pain shouldn’t have to guess whether to start with an orthopedic surgeon, spine surgeon, physical therapy or a pain specialist.

We want to figure that out with them, in the right order, based on what they’re trying to get back to and what their long-term goals are.

The same is true for older adults. This is especially important to me because I’ve spent much of my career caring for them and thinking about what better care should look like.

The needs of a 90-year-old are not the needs of a 45-year-old multiplied by two.

An older adult might come to us through primary care, the Emergency Department, surgery or Gilchrist. Whatever door they enter, they should feel that GBMC is ready for them.

It starts with the same question Dr. Neuner asked Dan: What matters most to you?

I think back to those friends and family members who contact me because they happen to know someone in healthcare. My hope is that every patient who turns to GBMC feels that same relief, whether or not they have a friend in the industry.

Knowing what comes next.

Knowing whether it is safe to wait.

Never feeling like they’re figuring it out alone.

Because getting the right care shouldn’t depend on who you know.

It should depend on what you need.

That’s what Care Built Around You means.