advocate best practices

Contractors, Kick Backs and Clarity – That’s Why We’re Here for Advocates

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(updated January 2017) We’ve seen fireworks in the APHA Forum before. And we’ve dealt with them. The beautiful thing about the Forum is that allows free conversations on every topic imaginable. But of course, as with any group of highly intelligent, motivated and capable people, we’re not always going to agree. We experienced that again this week. One of our very active and valued members had visited her attorney to work on her contracts. She raised the idea of working with independent contractors, and her attorney immediately advised her against it. As she reported in the Forum, “He advised me …

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Asking WTWTTCH Helps to Overcome the Paralysis of Analysis

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Having just returned from the APHA Business and Marketing workshops in Tampa, and in reviewing my notes and questions from attendees, I’ve come to a new conclusion about why many people have so much trouble pulling the trigger to actually SAY they are in practice – the formal hanging of their shingle, as it were…. Regular readers know I call this the “paralysis of analysis” – that inability to take the last steps. I’ve written about it here, and I’ve made recommendations here, and in both those cases, I’ve made a pretty thorough case for why advocates should not be …

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My Coffee Pot Caught Fire – and Other Lessons for Advocates

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bad smell

It was the SMELL – you know, that noxious, horrifying smell of burning rubber… That’s what alerted me to my smoldering coffee pot which was no longer just heating my coffee… No flames (OK – so that photo is a bit of exaggeration), no residual damage to my kitchen, but it did take two days to get the smell out of my house. Once the emergency was averted (I admit – the only real emergency was that I really wanted more coffee!) – it was time to get down to the business of purchasing a new coffee pot. So I …

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The 2014 Schueler Patient Advocacy Compass Award… and the winner is…

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And – we have a winner! The Alliance of Professional Health Advocates, on behalf of its selection committee (comprised of past winners plus Ken Schueler’s daughter, Alexandra), is pleased to announce the 2014 winner of the H. Kenneth Schueler Patient Advocacy Compass Award: Karen Zorrilla, MD of Houston, Texas. Congratulations Karen! The choice was both easy and difficult. Karen’s qualifications are outstanding – an easy choice. However, all our applicants are outstanding examples of excellence in their service to their clients and our profession. The competition was stiff. There were no wrong choices. In fact, this year’s applicants who did …

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Eight Hour Day? Get Paid for Sixteen

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Patient advocate Joan H. Elper has been an independent advocate for more than a year now. She has worked with seven clients during that time, and is growing her practice slowly but surely. Her focus is medical-navigational in nature, helping mostly elderly parents of the adult children who hire her understand what their doctors tell them. She also has two cancer patients who want to self-direct their care more than the doctors would like, so some of Joan’s reward comes from seeing those clients make informed decisions based on their own wants and needs, and finding that their doctors have …

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Doing What You Love Right Into a Hole

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deep black hole

Each week I’m contacted by a handful of people who have just begun thinking about becoming professional patient or health advocates. Often they share long stories – many paragraphs or several minutes long… describing years of advocacy for a loved one, or a resume full of nursing experience, as if they need to convince me that they would make a good advocate or they run the risk of not hearing back from me. These long, heartfelt messages are about the intersection of passion for advocacy – and the wish to use that passion to make a living. Advocacy fits them. …

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Why Being Too Helpful Will Destroy Your Advocacy Practice

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As the director of an organization for private, independent patient advocates, this time of year is full of big excitement – and big disappointments, too. Today is January 12, 2014 and I’m excited to tell you that 32 new private advocate wannabes have joined Alliance of Professional Health Advocates just since the first of the year. For each one who eventually goes into business as an advocate, we can anticipate that they will help perhaps 100 client-patients in the next 5 years – potentially 3200 people (plus their families) who will enjoy better medical outcomes, or save plenty of money …

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