Navigating Physician Advocacy in the Hospital: A Conversation with Dr. Monique Nugent
Hospitals don’t have golden tickets; they’re high-stakes systems where good outcomes depend on smart planning, relentless communication, and honest constraints. We sit down with Dr. Monique Nugent, a hospitalist and physician leader, to unpack what real advocacy looks like when insurance rules, limited coverage, and human needs collide. From the first hour of admission to the last mile of discharge, we explore how teams align care with what patients can actually access at home financially, logistically, and emotionally.
We walk through the essential partnership with case management, those nurses and social workers who turn plans into action by navigating benefits, rehab options, durable medical equipment, and community resources like Meals on Wheels. Dr. Nugent shares a candid end-of-life case that shows the tightrope physicians walk: proving the need to stay inpatient while arranging home hospice, all while documenting clearly enough to persuade insurers without over-treating. We also cover a less visible risk—failed discharges caused not by untreated illness but by unsafe homes, exhausted caregivers, and missing supporters.
If you’re a clinician, you’ll get practical tactics for better documentation, stronger peer-to-peer calls, and productive pushback when coverage decisions miss the clinical picture. If you’re a patient or caregiver, you’ll learn why discharge planning starts at admission, why to bring a “care partner” to key conversations, and which constraints to share early so care teams and physicians can solve key issues. Legal barriers like guardianship and conservatorship, transportation and cost hurdles, and the burnout that shadows advocacy all take center stage, with grounded advice on boundaries and resilience.
Ready to turn hospital stays into safer outcomes and fewer setbacks at home? Listen, share this with a colleague or caregiver, and subscribe for more conversations that protect your practice and your livelihood. If it resonated, leave a review and tell us what topic you’d like to hear us cover next!