Back to Evidence & Resource Library

A medical financial partnership in a pediatric medical home

Markowitz MA, Harper A, Rosenthal MS, Shabanova V, Cook E, Chen J, Rosenthal A, Shapiro ED, Horowitz S, Sude L
J Health Care Poor Underserved

The Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program is an underutilized free taxpreparation service that directly addresses poverty by maximizing tax refunds. A pediatric medical home (PMH) with an embedded VITA site provides an excellent opportunity for a medical-financial partnership. We sought to assess the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of caregivers of children who used a PMH after embedding a VITA site. We found that a PMH-VITA site was a convenient, trusted, useful, and potentially tax-filing behaviorchanging intervention. Importantly, most caregivers who did not use the PMH-VITA site had no knowledge of availability of free tax filing services but would consider using one the following year. Improved marketing is needed to increase utilization in our target population.

Markowitz MA, Harper A, Rosenthal MS, Shabanova V, Cook E, Chen J, Rosenthal A, Shapiro ED, Horowitz S, Sude L. A medical financial partnership in a pediatric medical home. J Health Care Poor Underserved. 2022;33(1):136-148. DOI:10.1353/hpu.2022.0011. PMID: 35153210

View the Resource
Publication year
Resource type
Peer Reviewed Research
Outcomes
Process
Population
Children and Youth
Social Determinant of Health
Economic Security
Study design
Other Study Design