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Don’t Let the YesButs Stand in Your Way

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This post is dedicated to all our APHA members and non-members who have been infested with YesButs. What’s a YesBut? A YesBut is the answer to all those questions and suggestions intended to help them build their practices that they prefer to not think about. Further, it’s the answer they give that, until these same advocates find a solution, indicates they will not succeed. I wish I had a dollar for every YesBut someone fires back at me! “YesBut they need the help so badly and they don’t have any money!” “YesBut I’m afraid to quit my fulltime job until […]

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‘Tis the Season to Extend Your Outreach

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(Updated 2020 in the midst of the pandemic!) Who hires you to be their advocate? It’s rarely one person who decides to hire you. No matter who your usual target audiences are – seniors, the elderly, adult children, parents…. the answer today is that families and loved ones come together to consider hiring an advocate for a loved one when they recognize that loved one is having challenges related to their health and medical care. Spouse discusses the idea with sick spouse. Adult son discusses the idea with sister to hire an advocate for parent. Brother considers hiring an advocate

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Riddle Me This – Then Take a Step Back

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You may have seen this riddle running around the internet: It’s 3:00 am. Your doorbell rings. Unexpected visitors! It’s long time friends, and they are hungry for some breakfast. You have strawberry jam, honey, wine, bread and cheese. So what is the first thing you open? Here’s one that’s similar, but is perhaps more appropriate for an audience of health advocates: It’s 3:00 am. Your doorbell rings. It’s your neighbors! One is clutching his chest and screams, I’ve been shot! The second one is holding her thigh and says, I’ve been shot, too! What’s the first thing you do? We’ll

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Remember Cat’s Cradle? How to Use It to Build Your Advocacy Practice

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Just back at my desk after the last of this Fall’s (2013) three APHA workshops, this one held in Los Angeles – another great experience meeting so many passionate, inspirational advocates and soon-to-be advocates…. As those who took the marketing workshop learned – one of the most important things we should do is to measure the effectiveness and client satisfaction of our work once it’s completed. To accomplish that, after each of the workshops, I surveyed attendees to see what they found most useful and to understand what didn’t work so well, too. The results: The answers varied. Many cited

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Is Grampa Packin’ Heat? And Other Safety Considerations for Advocates

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Sometimes a conversation gets started in our APHA Forum that brings me up short. (One reason I SO love the Forum!) One of those conversations was kicked off this week by a member who posed a question: are other members asking potential new clients whether they have guns in their homes? I’m not a gun person, and I live in an area where we just don’t think about guns much, so I really didn’t understand the question at first…. until others chimed in. It’s about safety – which, of course, makes perfect sense. Many members followed up Marie’s question with

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The Tragedies That Keep Me Up at Night

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The collision of my two professional worlds is keeping me up at night. It provides a cautionary tale for private, independent patient advocates. Not all readers of this blog know that I have my feet planted in two parts of this patient-assistance world. My first foray into healthcare started in 2004 with a horrific misdiagnosis which resulted in a change of careers (from being a marketing consultant) to becoming an expert in patient empowerment. By 2005 I had started writing on patient empowerment topics. Then in 2006, I began doing a great deal of public speaking across the US –

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Playing Favorites

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If you’re a parent, you know you’ve been asked this question: Which of your children is your favorite? Of course, there’s no way to answer that question! Because even if you have a favorite, you’d never fess up! As a parent, you do your utmost to be fair and equitable…. (We all know who our OWN parents’ favorite child is/was. My sister was my mother’s favorite. She was sweet, and quiet, and well behaved. And I was… well… not.) This week I was contacted with two different requests for referrals to APHA members, which means I am expected to pick

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