{"id":7093,"date":"2021-09-28T09:41:05","date_gmt":"2021-09-28T13:41:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/nephtc\/?p=7093"},"modified":"2021-09-28T10:41:21","modified_gmt":"2021-09-28T14:41:21","slug":"nephtc-alum-to-advocate-for-clients-for-medical-bills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/nephtc\/2021\/09\/28\/nephtc-alum-to-advocate-for-clients-for-medical-bills\/","title":{"rendered":"NEPHTC Alum to Advocate for Clients for Medical Bills"},"content":{"rendered":"

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School of Public Health alum\u00a0<\/span>Chalisa Sims<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>(SPH\u201918) always knew that she wanted to pursue a career in health. Her father was a physician in the Navy, and her mother conducts mental health data analysis for healthcare systems\u2014so, \u201cworking in the health field is in my blood,\u201d Sims says.<\/p>\n

A deep interest in health insurance\u2014specifically, creating equitable access to health insurance coverage\u2014led Sims to pursue her MPH at SPH, where she completed the health policy and law certificate in 2018.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing a military brat with TRICARE, health insurance was always easy for me to have,\u201d says Sims. \u201cThe more I learned that it wasn\u2019t so easy for other people, the more frustrated I became.\u201d<\/p>\n

As she began to delve into the inner workings of health insurance and healthcare laws in her certificate courses, Sims realized just how complex legal concepts, research, and writing really are.<\/p>\n

\u201cPolicy and law are so interconnected, and I realized there was a lot about law that I didn\u2019t understand,\u201d says Sims. \u201cI knew what I wanted to do, but I wasn\u2019t sure how to accomplish it if I didn\u2019t understand what I was reading.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Now, just a few years later, Sims is well versed in legalese, after earning her JD in May from the The University of Wisconsin Law School. In September, she will begin a new position as a first-year associate for the Madison, WI-based law firm\u00a0<\/span>Burns Bowen Bair<\/a>, where she will advocate for clients in dispute with insurance companies, particularly those who are dealing with COVID-related medical bills.<\/p>\n

When tackling legal questions and issues on health law, \u201cyou have to learn what the underlying problem is before you can even [address] the law,\u201d she says. \u201cI want everyone to have health insurance, but the underlying problem with health insurance is about how the health system is set up. Then you have to understand what the actual laws are that tell us how health insurance works, and the differences between state and federal laws. There are so many parts to the process before you can get to the actual answer.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the past year, Sims interned as a law clerk at the Wisconsin Department of Revenue, analyzing FMLA qualifications and researching the impacts of COVID-19 relief.<\/p>\n

\u201cReading about COVID relief and how it interacts with taxes made me realize just how much I had learned about health law,\u201d says Sims. who says that she also became a much stronger and effective writer from crafting different types of legal documents. \u201cI feel so much better knowing that I can help so many more people, because I\u2019m not just saying that something should be done, I can now articulate how it can be done.\u201d<\/p>\n

She credits her SPH education and professors in the Department of Health Law, Policy & Management\u2014including\u00a0<\/span>Alan Sager<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>and\u00a0<\/span>Wendy Mariner<\/a>\u2014for enabling her to hone her research skills and develop detailed arguments in lengthy pieces of writing.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlan Sager\u2019s finance classes were so helpful because money is so important in the context of health insurance,\u201d Sims says. She says Mariner taught her so much how laws interact with each other, and inspired a paper that she is currently writing about how certain legal actions\u2014such as restrictions against natural hair styles\u2014impact the social determinants of health among African Americans.<\/p>\n

\u201cDiscrimination against natural hair impacts people\u2019s health in so many ways,\u201d says Sims, who is Black. For example, she says, relaxers and other chemical straighteners \u201care dangerous for the person receiving it and the person applying it. But with natural hair, there are issues about how qualified we look for the job, instead of how qualified we actually are, and that can impact finances, housing, and healthcare. It\u2019s all connected.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reposted from BUSPH News: https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/news\/articles\/2021\/chalisa-sims-sph18-advocates-for-patients-on-health-insurance-matters\/\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

School of Public Health alum\u00a0Chalisa Sims\u00a0(SPH\u201918) always knew that she wanted to pursue a career in health. Her father was a physician in the Navy, and her mother conducts mental health data analysis for healthcare systems\u2014so, \u201cworking in the health field is in my blood,\u201d Sims says. A deep interest in health insurance\u2014specifically, creating equitable […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12057,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,1],"tags":[477,478,479,476,480],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/nephtc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7093"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/nephtc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/nephtc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/nephtc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12057"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/nephtc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7093"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/nephtc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7147,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/nephtc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7093\/revisions\/7147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/nephtc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/nephtc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/nephtc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}