Yao, a Chinese-American man in his early-fifties was referred to a patient advocate by the social worker at the hospital where his wife Lili was being treated for colon cancer. Lily was in the process for applying for Social Security Disability Income (SSDI).
Yao had questions about Lili’s SSDI application, which had already been submitted to Social Security. He was concerned that the application was not filled out accurately, that Lili answered “no” to the question “are you a citizen?” (she was), and that the wrong date was written in for their date of marriage, which needed to be translated from the Chinese lunar calendar.
English was Yao’s second language and although his verbal skills were good, his reading and writing were poor. Lili had stronger reading and writing skills but her health was deteriorating and she was very weak. Yao had been trying to contact Social Security for the past two week to correct these errors, but they had not returned his call.
A patient advocate scheduled several times for Yao and the advocate to call Social Security together. The advocate also helped Yao draft a letter to mail to Social Security to explain the possible errors. The advocate also learned that Yao had been ignoring a chronic cough and encouraged him to seek care at a local community clinic.
