health advocates and navigators

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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Private, Independent – and Potentially Confusing

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There is a drug I take, which I have taken for years, which I order from one of the large mail-order benefits companies. Every 90 days or so, I log on, wend my way to ‘refill your prescription” and wait for a few days until it arrives. It’s a beautiful thing. Last week – not so much. Last week I tried to order my refill, and instead got a notice that they don’t have any in stock! Not only that, they weren’t sure when it would be in stock again. Say, what? This is a standard, everyone-takes-it generic type drug. …

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The Health Advocate’s Olympics

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Like many of you, I have been glued to the Olympics for more than a week. I stay up very late every night (and have to drag myself out of bed in the morning!) to watch athletes who can twist or turn or propel their bodies in ways that seem practically inhuman. A mix of awe, pride, respect and, when it comes to Chinese badminton players, incredulity. Watching the athletes and the competitions, I realized there are some metaphorical similarities between what they do, and what we, the pioneers of the profession of private health advocacy, are working to accomplish, …

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What’s In a Name? A Caveat for “Navigators”

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Friend of health and patient advocates and NAVIGATORs everywhere, Elisabeth Russell, forwarded a link to many of us this week – an article from the National Cancer Institute regarding the use of patient navigators for cancer patients. My first reaction is – what a marvelous, MARVELOUS service these navigators are providing to cancer patients. I have to wonder how cancer patients ever survived treatment prior to having a navigator to help them! And then I have to pause…. I see a few problems cropping up – two that can be problematic for health and patient advocates, and one a problem …

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What Health Advocates Need to Know about the Affordable Care Act

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It’s official and it’s not going away. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as healthcare reform, or the ACA, is changing the face of healthcare for every American. The first changes became effective shortly after its passage in 2010. New parts of the law will continue to be implemented until January 1, 2014 when the biggest part of the law, the individual mandate, will ensure (almost) every American has some form of insurance or government coverage to pay for the care they need. Are you, as an independent health advocate, prepared for those changes? Even further, are …

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“Ask a Health Advocate” Makes Its Debut

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All patients and caregivers have questions for health advocates. Just like they have questions for their doctors, or nurses (or the Internet!), they have questions about navigating the craziness of the healthcare system, or questions about their medical records (or rights to get copies), or about a claim that won’t be paid, or a bill that is higher than they expected, or explanations of treatment options – many many questions that need answers. Sometimes the only way to sort out their challenges is to hire someone to help – thus AdvoConnection’s Directory to help them. But sometimes what they have …

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How Health Advocates Can Save Money for Their Clients

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Over the past few years, increasingly, I hear from patients who (usually after hospitalization) feel that they have been unfairly billed for medical services.They contact me because they find an article or two I’ve written at my Patient Empowerment site at About.com about medical billing and insurance. When I say increasingly, I mean – since the first of this year the numbers have really spiked. I mean, really spiked. As if the medical billing universe has decided that no one should get a correct bill anymore, and everyone should be required to pay for something they didn’t think they should …

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