common sense

The Weakest Link

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Remember that TV show from a decade or more ago? When a contestant failed to answer a quiz question correctly, the host would sternly declare, “YOU ARE the WEAKEST LINK. GOOD-BYE!”? Remaining, of course, were the more knowledgeable contestants, presumably a stronger chain of smarter people who could get the job done. Oh man, how I wish I had been able to invoke that host’s dismissal powers this past week! As both my husband and I had to deal with different parts of the healthcare system, we encountered roadblocks – the weakest links – and in each case, we had …

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And They Called it Puppy L-o-o-ve

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< ….cue Paul Anka or Donny Osmond…. > …. Remember when you were a teenager in puppy love> Oh! You couldn’t stand to be away from the new person in your life! You knew you would love each other forever – but the rest of the world that was getting in the way of that love. THEY thought you were too young, but you knew better! …. And they called it puppy love Oh I guess they’ll never know How a young heart really feels And why I love her so It was the highest of highs, finding love for …

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Common Courtesy and Who Owes What?

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It was a desperate plea from a young women (we’ll call her Bethany) with a real problem: Bethany had been through several years of infusion treatment for services rendered outside of her network, beginning while she was still a teenager. Her insurance company covered the service (because it wasn’t available at all within her network). So insurance had paid Bethany’s mother for each claim, and then her mother paid the infusion provider. The problem was that, over the years, the mother had paid less than the total amount due – and then she passed away. The infusion company got in …

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The Best 3 Minutes and 16 Seconds You’ll Spend Today, This Week, Month or Year

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One of our APHA members* forwarded this video link to me, interested in the idea posed about starting one’s practice before it is perfect. So I watched it… And watching it was perhaps the best 3 minutes and 16 seconds I have spent on business motivation in a very long time. So I ask you, too, to spend your next few minutes viewing it – then come back here for a few comments…. Standing Out in a Noisy World “tap” “tap” “tap” “waiting for everyone to come back to this post….” “tap” “tap” “tap” OK – so in those few …

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Ripped from the Headlines…. a Warning for Health Advocates, Too

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A kidnapping and murder last weekend raises questions for all professionals who work one-on-one with strangers…. If it can happen to a real estate agent, it can happen to a health advocate, too. I’m referring to the headlines about Beverly Carter in Little Rock, Arkansas. She was a real estate agent who had gotten a call from a stranger to show a home she had listed for sale. And then she disappeared. Her body was found several days later in a shallow grave. See that second sentence? “She was a real estate agent who had gotten a call from a …

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Don’t Shoot the Messenger

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Something I’ve noticed over the past two years or so is that people who write to me for help seem to be getting increasingly belligerent when they don’t like the information I share, or reply to their questions or requests. Three examples: A woman wrote to me through my About.com Patient Empowerment site, asking me to please make a phone call to her psychiatrist to tell him that she needed a higher dose of Xanax. I replied to her to say that first, I don’t work directly with patients – I write and speak and run an organization. Further, that …

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10 Lessons Patient Advocates and Navigators Can Learn from the Superbowl

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Superbowl image

I’ll confess that I’m not a big football fan. And I’m certainly not a big fan of sports metaphors (which actually drive me crazy in business because I think they are exclusionary – not everyone understands them.). But I am a fan of learning good business lessons from the experiences we have and the activities that are going on around us. And the lessons we can pull from the Superbowl are, well… super. So please forgive the sports metaphors for the moment, and see what you can learn: 1. The Superbowl is about excellence. Only the top two teams in …

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