Physicians, Disabled Patients, and Healthcare Access

Last year, as emergency rooms and intensive care units were filled to capacity due to COVID-19, physicians had to make very difficult decisions about how to distribute scarce resources. Patients and their families relied on physicians to make these decisions in an unbiased, clear manner. In this episode, we hear from Dr. Lisa Iezzoni, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School who co-authored a recent study revealing alarming statistics about physician perceptions of patients with disabilities. The study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Health Affairs, found that 82 percent of physicians surveyed believed that patients with disabilities have a lower quality of life than non-disabled patients. The study also found that less than half of the physicians surveyed believed and were confident that they could provide high-quality care to patients with disabilities. In their conversation, Qudsiya and Dr. Iezzoni discuss the findings of this study, what it tells us about our healthcare system, and the necessary solutions to ensure equitable access to health care for people with disabilities.