Trisha Torrey

Announcing: A Big Change for Admission to the AdvoConnection Directory

6 minutes of reading / 2 Comments / By Trisha Torrey / April 9, 2018

Many readers of this blog are familiar with, or are already listed in the AdvoConnection Directory. It’s THE place to be for private, professional, independent advocates who want to be found and hired by patients or caregivers who need them. It’s the largest, and the only “vetted” directory that exists for advocates. We”re announcing today a big change to what it takes to be listed in the directory which will affect almost everyone who has given thought to being included in the directory – but isn’t yet listed. That may include you! We’ll begin with a little history to help […]

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History, Tidbits of Interest, and True Confessions about Patient Advocacy Certification

8 minutes of reading / 8 Comments / By Trisha Torrey / April 3, 2018

Today’s post is deeply personal, the culmination of 5-1/2 years of work, thousands of hours of donated time and effort, and my hopes, emotions, and dreams for this profession of health and patient advocacy that I believe is so vital to the future of safe, effective, and fair patienthood. It regards the launch in mid-March (2018) of Patient Advocate Certification from the PACB (Patient Advocate Certification Board), how we got there, my appreciation and deep respect for the hard work of my fellow PACBoard members, and the immense amount of pride I continue to feel about being a part of

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STOP! HALT! Keep Quiet … or Lose Business

5 minutes of reading / 7 Comments / By Trisha Torrey / March 26, 2018

Last week two of my friends invited me to participate with them in a local March for Our Lives event being held Saturday. If you are tuned into the news and politics of today, you know that marches were held to support gun control to keep people, especially our children, safe from being victims of mass murderers. Hundreds of thousands of individuals marched on Washington, DC, and in hundreds of other cities to bring attention to this issue. To my friends’ invitation, I replied no. I couldn’t / wouldn’t go. But maybe not for the reasons you might think. It’s

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How Is Patient Advocacy Like Doing the Laundry?

5 minutes of reading / Leave a Comment / By Trisha Torrey / March 19, 2018

Would you ever hire someone to do your laundry? Many of us would answer Yes! Of course! — IF we had the money. A big IF! I suspect, however, that most of us would say no, knowing that washers and dryers make it easy to get the family laundry done, even if we dislike the task. Further, we all think we know how to get our clothes clean (short of occasional coffee and ketchup stains). Even if we feel laundry-challenged, it doesn’t seem to be enough of a problem that we would actually pay someone else to do it. However,

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Channeling Oliver Twist and the Two Steps of MORE

6 minutes of reading / Leave a Comment / By Trisha Torrey / March 13, 2018

Oliver from Wikimedia Commons signed b.l.: C.E. Brock

This past week, for the first time, AdvoConnection Directory-listed APHA members were able to access their statistics (analytics) for their AdvoConnection profiles. How many visitors found the advocate’s profile in the last month? How many of those visitors were unique? (first visits) How long did they stay, on average, to read the profile? Of course, the idea for each listed advocate is to try to improve upon those numbers, month over month, knowing that the MORE people who contact them, the MORE clients they may end up working with… Or, with a nod to Charles Dickens, and channeling Oliver Twist,

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Income Tax Time – Saving Money and Saving Trouble

5 minutes of reading / Leave a Comment / By Trisha Torrey / March 5, 2018

It’s that time of year when, every time we turn around, we’re being reminded that it’s time to file our income tax returns. I rank those moments right down there with getting a tooth drilled, hearing that a high school friend died, or, these days, watching the news. Yeah. So, in hopes of removing some of the sting, and in an effort to pull all the material together, accessible in one place, I’m going to take this occasion to compile into one post what I’ve had to say over the years about taxes on this blog: yours, your clients, and

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Pancakes, Snakes, Red Flags, and Advocacy

5 minutes of reading / Leave a Comment / By Trisha Torrey / February 26, 2018

You don’t have to be a huge fan of Dr. Phil’s to appreciate his delightful and useful sayings. He boils down important and sometimes complex concepts into downhome philosophy that helps us better understand our fellow human beings and our lives. Today we’re going to focus on one of those sayings to improve our ability to ferret out those clients we should not work with (yes, I said, SHOULD NOT work with): “No matter how flat you make your pancake, it still has two sides.” Advocacy stories are like those pancakes. They have at least two sides, too. I raise

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