On March 31, 2026, FISA hosted the Breaking Barriers webinar, Beyond the Exam Room, featuring Dr. Amy Houtrow in conversation with Dr. Josie Badger. Dr. Houtrow, a pediatric rehabilitation physician with lived experience as a person with disabilities, reflected on how health is shaped by far more than clinical care alone.
Drawing from both personal and professional experience, Dr. Houtrow explored how housing instability, food insecurity, poverty, racism, and ableism profoundly influence health outcomes—often more than what happens in the exam room. For people with disabilities, and especially people of color with disabilities, these forces are compounded. She also emphasized the critical role healthcare professionals can play in advancing equity and access, even within systems that often limit time and resources.
Below is a recap of key themes from the conversation:
“If we try to decouple medicine from reality, we are doing a disservice to everyone.”
– Dr. Houtrow
Expanding the Medical Toolbox: Creative Approaches to Care
Dr. Houtrow described how physicians are often constrained by time, billing structures, and insurance systems, yet still hold meaningful power as advocates and connectors. She shared examples such as challenging insurance denials for essential medical equipment or creatively leveraging medical tools to address food insecurity for an entire family. These actions can be critical to an individual’s ability to access care and thrive in their communities.
“We shouldn’t have to go to extraordinary measures as patients with disabilities to have our voices heard.”
– Dr. Houtrow
Creating Trust and Overcoming Bias
The conversation also explored trust, bias, and medical trauma, particularly for people with disabilities who have long histories of being dismissed, misunderstood, or harmed in healthcare settings. Dr. Houtrow emphasized the importance of listening to and believing people with disabilities as experts in their own lives. She emphasized the importance of changes in medical education and healthcare systems to move beyond fast, fragmented care toward more holistic, relationship‑based approaches.
Dr. Amy Houtrow is the Vice-Chair for Pediatric Rehabilitation, Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and Pediatrics, Vice-Chair for Quality in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the University of Pittsburgh, and a recent recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.
Visit our webpage for this initiative, Access to Health Care for People with Disabilities, to access the report and materials presented during the convening. On this webpage, you will find:
- The recording for this webinar and other webinars in the Breaking Barriers Series
- FISA’s commissioned report, A Far Cry from Fair: Health-care Access for People with Disabilities, on which Dr. Houtrow served as an author.
- A series of short, powerful, first-person testimony videos from people with disabilities, recounting their experiences accessing health care and what they would like to see improved.