The Subjective, Objective, Assessment, and Plan (SOAP) framework could be expanded beyond clinical care to also address patients’ financial and legal well-being. This would require training health care providers in basic financial and legal principles, establishing dedicated financial-legal departments within health care institutions, and potentially offering financial and legal services as add-ons to health care insurance. With these changes, routine health care encounters could become more comprehensive, addressing socioeconomic needs alongside medical ones.
Under this model, health care delivery would function as an integrated “one-stop” system in which physicians, accountants, and lawyers collaborate to address the clinical, financial, and legal factors that influence health outcomes. This approach would be especially valuable in geriatric care, where patients often need support beyond traditional medicine, including financial planning and legal guidance to ensure dignified, informed, and well-managed living and end-of-life care.
Screening questions
A brief physician-led questionnaire could identify patients who would benefit from in-house financial or legal consultation:
- Would you like to discuss your financial or legal situation?
- What financial or legal challenges are you currently facing?
- How long have these challenges persisted?
- How would you describe their nature and severity?
- Are they temporary or ongoing?
- What factors have contributed to them?
- What steps might improve your situation?
- How do these challenges affect your health or access to care?
- What symptoms or stress do they cause?
- Would addressing them likely improve your symptoms?
- Would you like to consult an in-house accountant or lawyer?
- How urgently is this consultation needed, routine, urgent, or emergent?
Applying the SOAP framework
After the physician conducts the initial Subjective screening, the remaining SOAP components proceed collaboratively. In-house accountants and lawyers perform the Objective evaluation, documenting the patient’s specific financial and legal concerns. The Assessment phase categorizes and prioritizes these issues, including their severity and impact on health outcomes. Finally, the Plan outlines structured interventions such as financial counseling, legal support, resource allocation, or referrals to external services.
This multidisciplinary model, in which physicians screen, specialists evaluate, and patients receive holistic care, acknowledges that financial, legal, and health outcomes are deeply interconnected. Addressing them together could meaningfully improve patients’ overall well-being.
Deepak Gupta is an anesthesiologist. Sarwan Kumar is an internal medicine physician.
