client services | APHA Blog : The Alliance of Professional Health Advocates

She Crossed the Line: An Ethics Violation Which Gave Us All a Black Eye

5 minutes of reading / 2 Comments / By Trisha Torrey / February 17, 2021

It was jarring. It was upsetting. And it was taken care of swiftly. One among us decided that advocacy ethics don’t apply to her. And her actions, way outside our best practices and ethics, could have caused a patient to die. This is what happened (with no names or identifiable citations, because it could have been anywhere or anyone, and those specifics aren’t the point): I was first informed of the problem last October (2020) when I heard from the Senior Investigator from the State Board of Nursing. She had identified me as a leader in the profession of independent […]

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Elevating Normal

6 minutes of reading / 1 Comment / By Trisha Torrey / January 30, 2021

Today I’m sharing with you a recent revelation, based on a conversation with my friend, Grace. It’s H-U-U-G-E! With just a slight shift in thinking and approach, it can be used to manage our lives in the midst of this pandemic, our dreams for what’s to come post-pandemic, and even more so (and far more appropriate to this blog) our advocacy and care management practices. We’ve Been Selling Peace of Mind What the smartest independent advocates among us understand is that when a prospective client calls to inquire about our services, they aren’t really asking about what services we provide.

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Success in 2020 Meant Finding Our Relocated Cheese

4 minutes of reading / 1 Comment / By Trisha Torrey / December 8, 2020

2020 has been a year for the books, right? Few, if any, health and patient advocates or care managers will tell you that 2020 has been a good business year, much less a good year personally. But those of you who know me and my thought process, know that I like to look at every challenge as an opportunity. And with that in mind, it’s a good opportunity to point out the important lesson that those who have survived 2020 in business have learned: We have learned what to do when someone moves our cheese. So if you are scratching

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What Aretha Franklin Can Teach Us About Communication

6 minutes of reading / Leave a Comment / By Trisha Torrey / November 18, 2020

This post asks the question: Under what circumstances do we go to the wall for our patient-clients? And when we need to go there, what’s the best approach? Scenario: Your patient-client checks in for a medical appointment and the receptionist is rude during the process. Do you say or do anything? And if so – how and what? Scenario: As you sit by your patient’s hospital bedside, a nurse comes in to change a dressing already wearing gloves. You ask her to wash her hands and put on new gloves and she cops an attitude. Do you insist? And if

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All That – But Missing Your Bag of Chips?

5 minutes of reading / 2 Comments / By Trisha Torrey / October 30, 2020

Over the years, I’ve met, discussed, emailed, pleaded, and thrown my hands up at (probably) hundreds of advocates who have never truly become professional, independent, practicing advocates. They might have told you they were/are advocates. They SAID they were in business. But their efforts were half-hearted. They didn’t ever ACTIVELY go into business. Instead they joined an organization, or set up a website, or printed business cards, or told their friends they were in business… they might even have listed themselves in a directory or two… But it was all very half-hearted. Why? Because of that idea that they weren’t

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Beware Those Wolves in Sheeps’ Clothing

6 minutes of reading / 5 Comments / By Trisha Torrey / July 6, 2020

This post was originally published in July 2013, and was updated in July 2020. Two unrelated stories have crossed my path, but their bottom lines are the same. It’s too easy to be fooled. Story #1: … is based on a scathing article from the Wall Street Journal about the amount of money medical device companies pay to the doctors who use their products. The story is mostly focused on investigations from the Justice Department starting with one doctor who lived and worked in California, Dr. Aria Sabit, who insisted on using certain spinal implant products because he owns part

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“I’ve done advocacy for friends and loved ones all my life. Now I just want to get paid for it!”

5 minutes of reading / 2 Comments / By Trisha Torrey / June 15, 2020

I wish I had a nickel for every time someone told me “I want to join the Alliance of Professional Health Advocates because I’m good at advocacy, I’ve done it for years for friends and family, and now I just want figure out how to get paid for it.” Honestly> Sometimes those words make me want to scream, because I know they will never make that leap. The problem is, no matter how simple the answer, no matter how many opportunities they have – the majority of people who can make that statement will never be paid for independent advocacy

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