By Michael N. Brown, CEO, Fellow Health Partners
A recent piece in The Daily Beast [1] captured what many of us in healthcare already know but don’t talk about enough: our system—intended to heal—is often the source of deep emotional stress for patients. Cancer survivor Jonathan Gluck’s story, marked by anxiety not from his illness but from navigating the healthcare system itself, should be a wake-up call for all of us.
As CEO of Fellow Health Partners, I’ve spent years focused on the business side of healthcare— providing services related to coding, billing, revenue cycle management, and patient support/customer service. But beneath the dollars lies something more fragile and more vital: trust. And when patients are overwhelmed by unexpected bills, confusing portals, and impersonal systems, that trust erodes.
Behind Every Bill Is a Human
Administrative stress is real. It’s the late-night worry over a denied claim, the unanswered question about a copay, the voicemail that never gets returned. These moments don’t show up on an MRI, but they impact recovery and resilience.
At Fellow Health Partners, we believe that behind every bill is a human being—someone who deserves clarity, compassion, and care. That’s why we’ve made it our mission to not just process claims but to create calm in what can often feel like chaos.
Leading With Empathy—and Accountability
Healthcare leaders must confront a tough truth: the complexity we’ve built into the system—whether due to insurance policies, tech platforms, or reimbursement structures—is driving patient stress. We can’t solve everything overnight, but we can lead differently.
That starts by:
- Making administrative processes more humane, not just more efficient.
- Training staff to lead with listening, not just with policy.
- Designing billing systems and call centersthat serve people, not just payers.
- Meet this commitment by fusingTechnology, Talent, and Training to create a multi-faceted support system to meet clients’ needs.
- Integrate with customers’ existing infrastructuresto seamlessly streamline billing, collections, coding, unresolved denials, and related workflows.
At Fellow Health Partners, we’ve seen firsthand that when patients feel understood, supported, and respected, everyone wins—including providers, payers, and institutions.
It’s Time to Re-Humanize Healthcare
The healthcare system doesn’t need more complexity. It needs more clarity. More empathy. More humanity.
If we are to restore trust, we must prioritize not just the science of healing, but the experience of being cared for. We owe our patients that. We owe our providers that. And as leaders, we owe it to ourselves to build a system we’d want our own families to navigate.
Let’s stop adding harm—let’s start building a system that truly heals.
[1] https://www.thedailybeast.com/americas-broken-healthcare-system-is-making-people-sickwith-stress/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
