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Help Us Assess the LoveFest!

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Once upon a time, the word “advocate” was contentious: doctors didn’t want us in the room, nurses didn’t want us next to a hospital bed, and health insurers thought we patient advocates were nothing but troublemakers. But in recent years there seems to have been a major shift in attitudes. I’m hoping you can help us assess that. This point came up in several recent conversations with people who have been doing advocacy work for many years; who have been able to observe attitudes for quite awhile, and who tell me they have seen this shift with their own eyes. […]

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Top 10 “Best Of” APHA Posts: 2017 in Review

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As 2017 comes to a close, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at the blog posts you, my readers, considered to be most worth your reading time. Using post analytics, I’m able to see how many of you have read each of the 44 posts from 2017. Then, accommodating for the fact that some posts have been online for 11+ months, while others were just posted recently, it’s easy to tell which ones captured your imagination (or google’s search interest) to make the assessment. So here are the top 10 posts (well – OK – I

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The Dirty Dozen Skills, Abilities, and Attributes of Successful Health and Patient Advocates and Care Managers – Part I

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That’s quite a title for a blog post, don’t you think? I’ve been working on this one for awhile, and it seems to have taken on a life of its own. In fact, it’s so long, I’ve now divided it into four parts. Further, you’re about to learn is that I can’t count. I call it the “dirty dozen” because it’s a catchy title and it will compel you to link here to read the post (You’ll read more about this in Part III !). But it’s really a list of 16 (yes, 16!) skills, tasks, and attributes that the

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Sleep Deprivation Spells Opportunity – and Responsibility

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Saturday night (well, OK, in the wee hours of Sunday morning) across most of the US and Canada, we “sprung forward” our clocks, resulting in lost sleep, and at least a day of being totally thrown off because the day seemed… well…. just weird. Since most of us don’t work on a Sunday, the day of adjustment helped us acclimate, and then – life goes on with a longer day of sunshine through next Fall. But what if you had to lose that sleep every few days, then re-acclimate every few days? What if you spent your life in a

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Repeal of the ACA… So Now What Should We Do?

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Last week marked the inauguration of the 45th president of the United States. No matter your feelings about him or his politics, he’s here to stay, presumably for the next four years, alongside a Republican majority in Congress. The first order of business? Repealing the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare), the legislation under which many of us are able to get, and afford, healthcare insurance, and access to the care we need. With the stroke of a pen, the icing on the repeal cake was completed within the first few hours of the new president taking office. Congress had already baked

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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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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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