decision making

Monetizing, Scaling – Making Smart Choices Affects Your Advocacy Practice and Income

6 minutes of reading / 1 Comment / By

An email this week comes from one of our APHA members, who I will call Bernice, who reminds me of how easy it is to lose sight of what is important to us when it comes to building our advocacy practices. Bernice is in the process of entering a business plan competition which, if she wins, will provide her with a $10,000 grant to help her grow her practice. Her concern is, that in order to win the money, she is going to have to write a business plan that’s about “going big.” From her email to me: “We have …

Monetizing, Scaling – Making Smart Choices Affects Your Advocacy Practice and Income Continue Reading

Health Advocacy Ethics – Conflict of Interest? Or Important Service?

5 minutes of reading / 9 Comments / By

A recent conversation with a handful of knowledgeable people, people I respect a great deal, yielded two different outcomes – either a loud “yes, of course!!” or a loud “no, no way!” So I want to know what YOU think. As a prelude to the story – the question I will ask you at the end is: Should Gwen become Mrs. Smith’s healthcare proxy? Can she ETHICALLY make that shift? (We are not asking a legal question here ? only a question of ethics.) Mrs. Smith is 90 years old and until recently was quite healthy. She is alone; her …

Health Advocacy Ethics – Conflict of Interest? Or Important Service? Continue Reading

Cruel to Be Kind and Kind to be Cruel

6 minutes of reading / 3 Comments / By

I received an email from a woman named Irma. She wants to become a health advocate, to assist people in her community who have Alzheimers. (Bless her for that.) But she was laid off from her job, and doesn’t have any money. She asked me if I would let her join Alliance of Professional Health Advocates for free so she could “learn how to do it.” Irma’s request was not the first I’ve received over the years. I am also asked to give people free copies of my books, and even loan or donate money to help them get started …

Cruel to Be Kind and Kind to be Cruel Continue Reading

Chutzpah! Know When It Crosses the Line

5 minutes of reading / 3 Comments / By

One of my favorite words: Chutzpah! Pronounced “hoots-pah.” A Yiddish word translated as “shameless audacity” or “supreme self-confidence,” as in (according to Merriam-Webster) “personal confidence or courage that allows someone to do or say things that may seem shocking to others.” …. and sometimes a trait required by the most effective of health and patient advocates. Do you have chutzpah? And more importantly, do you know how and when to use it? I ask this because I think there are appropriate times, and inappropriate times, when an advocate needs to showcase his or her chutzpah. Lately I have experienced both, …

Chutzpah! Know When It Crosses the Line Continue Reading

You’re Not Charging Enough, and It’s Hurting Our Entire Profession

5 minutes of reading / 5 Comments / By

What is it worth to find someone who can save your life? 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 provide peace of mind? …………….. I can tell you what it’s worth based on what I read in the press, in the APHA Forum, in my email and …

You’re Not Charging Enough, and It’s Hurting Our Entire Profession Continue Reading

The One Thing That Will Cause Your Private Advocacy Practice to Fail

5 minutes of reading / Leave a Comment / By

Here are samples of some inquiries I have received from people wanting to be advocates. See if you can guess what they all have in common: I want to help Medicaid patients find doctors who will take their insurance. We plan to help children with mental health issues find the help they need. I want to help young girls who find themselves pregnant find the social services they need to get them through their pregnancies. I want to work with churches and senior centers to help their members and attendees understand their medical care. I want to help lymphoma patients …

The One Thing That Will Cause Your Private Advocacy Practice to Fail Continue Reading

The One Thing You Must Do to Grow Your Advocacy Practice (and Take a Vacation, too)

6 minutes of reading / Leave a Comment / By

The answer to this notion of “the one thing you must do” boils down to trust, although maybe not in the way you’ll expect… I say this to you, with the keen awareness of the fact that trusting isn’t something I do well. Having spent the first half of my life as Pollyanna reincarnated, then having been burned by too many people I DID trust along the way, including an ex-husband, an ex-business partner, and the notorious reason for all this empowerment and advocacy work of mine – the doctors who I trusted to help me whether my mysterious odyssey …

The One Thing You Must Do to Grow Your Advocacy Practice (and Take a Vacation, too) Continue Reading

APHA Blog : The Alliance of Professional Health Advocates →←
Scroll to Top