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2017 State of Patient Advocacy and the Alliance of Professional Health Advocates

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As we kick off 2017, let’s look at the past year in review. What is the status of this profession of health and patient advocacy? How well is APHA serving the needs of patient-clients and its members? We began 2016 with a similar reality check. The bottom line was that our profession is growing, but not nearly fast enough! The need for our services is so very much larger than the number of people to fill it. That status has not improved; in fact, the need is bigger than ever before. In that same vein, but without including the more […]

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An Advocate’s Website Checklist

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As we close in on the end of the year, many of you are (or at least should be) in the process of reviewing your marketing plans in preparation for the new year. Others among you, those who are just getting started with building advocacy practices, may be looking at ways to improve what you’ve started (or maybe you even just hope to get started!) Among the marketing tactics we should all be using is a marketing website. In fact, except for finding public speaking opportunities, your website is arguably THE most important piece of marketing you can use. Most

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Charge More! It’s Good for Everyone (Including Your Clients)!

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It’s the question I’m asked by newbies more frequently than any other: How much can I charge? (BTW – what they really mean is – How much can I make?) To answer those questions in 2014, I posed these questions: What is it worth to find someone who can provide quality to a life that has little or no quality because of health problems? What is it worth to find someone who can save you tens of thousands of dollars, or to prevent you from going bankrupt? What is it worth to find someone who can alleviate your fear and

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Shooting Your Advocacy Practice in the Foot

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Readers of this blog may remember that my husband and I have been in the process of moving – from Upstate NY (where they had 40 inches of snow last week!) to Central Florida. (No, no snow here so far 🙂 ) Moving is a bear – there are no two ways about that. Ours took place in two stages: first to a rental house, putting 75% of our household goods into storage. Then Stage Two, this past week, moving into our newly built home, bringing our goods out of storage. Now, of course, we’re trying to make our way

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What the Presidential Election Results Mean for Patient Advocates

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When President Barack Obama ran for office in 2008, healthcare reform was already an enormous and contentious topic. In those days, I was invited to speak to dozens of groups of patients and caregivers to help audiences sort out the issues that comprised healthcare reform so they could, on their own, decide which aspects (if any) were important to them. From the concept of “universal” healthcare through a public option, to coverage for pre-existing conditions, to portability, tort reform, free vaccinations to develop “herd immunity,” and many more, we looked at the whole of the topic as objectively as possible.

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Revisiting the Question: Advocate and Proxy, Too? Making Decisions for Clients

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Two years ago we asked whether a health/patient advocate can also be a decision-maker for her client in the form of being a healthcare proxy or guardian (the patient-designated person who makes end-of-life decisions for the patient, based on wishes the patient has legally documented). Since the ethics and standards of the original advocate role very specifically state that an advocate WILL NOT and CAN NOT make decisions for a client, would the new role of proxy or guardian create a conflict-of-interest? The scenario shared was that “Gwen” had been Mrs. Smith’s advocate for a long period of time and

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Carly Simon, Ketchup and an Advocate’s Secret Sauce

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Many readers of this blog (members of The Alliance of Professional Health Advocates) know we’ve been burning the candle at both ends trying to complete the build of the new APHA membership website. Short of raising my two daughters, I think it’s the biggest project I’ve ever undertaken – just enormous – hundreds of resources and thousands of pages – and I’m happy that it is now complete! (Or at least as close as it will ever be – these things are never truly complete.) Along the way, I’ve learned a few lessons about how to approach the work that

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