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Alone, But Not by Yourself

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“But she is so upset with me now!” That was the response from an advocate who wrote to me after an unpleasant encounter with a former client. Even though they had not worked together for more than a year, the client had contacted the advocate to ask for copies of her medical records. The client knew the advocate had acquired them when they worked together, she needed them, and she didn’t want to pay for them again. Fair request, certainly. The advocate should have been able to turn them over to the client quite easily, either electronically or on paper…. […]

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Non-Payer? Or Scammer? A New Step for Client Acquisition

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We hear about scams and frauds every day in the news. An elderly person is convinced to donate money to a scam charity, or doctors defraud Medicare, or someone’s identity is stolen, or the IRS’s website is hacked…. Thing is – like car accidents – we never think a scam can happen to us. So we simply, and naively, go about our days and our business thinking we are somehow immune. We are such nice people, so very giving, and can’t imagine anyone would ever try to take advantage of us…Right? No. Wrong. Wrong, and expensive. One of our APHA

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Helping Your Clients Deduct Your Services From Their Income Taxes (IRS and CRA)

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(Reviewed and Updated February 2022) It’s a good year to revisit patient advocacy services and income taxes. Our first review came in 2010. We looked again in 2013. While little (maybe nothing) has changed, this year I have a new suggestion for you – a bit of a twist. In question is whether or not your patient advocacy services should be included in the list of medical expenses that allow them to be deducted from your clients’ income taxes; whether they can be used to reach that 10% or 7.5% threshold that allows them to be deductible (for the IRS).

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Has Your Work Been Plagiarized?

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They say that imitation is the highest form of flattery. While there may be some truth to that, there is no truth to the idea that plagiarism is a form of flattery at all. In my last post I shared with you my excitement at the advent of some new competition in the advocacy space, and gave you a list of six reasons why competition is a good thing, something to celebrate. But sometimes there’s a downside to competition, too. One such competitor to AdvoConnection, a new directory being set up in hopes of taking your money to match you

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Head to Head, Toe to Toe – And Who Are the Big Winners?

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Updated 2/10/2020 Like Jeopardy, I’m going to start by giving you the answer: Patients and Caregivers Smart Health and Patient Advocates So what’s the question? That would be: Who are the biggest beneficiaries when it comes to competition in the health and patient advocate space? Just want to start with that perspective so we don’t lose sight of it as I begin describing recent events, as a prelude to some big excitement and perhaps, that moment we’ve all been waiting for…. In the eight years I’ve been working on promoting patient advocacy, there was more commotion, more positive movement, more

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The Two Pieces of Advice You Will Ignore – Until You Are Burned

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Consider these scenarios: Scenario #1. Jane calls you, in a panic. Her mother, age 88, who lives in your city, has fallen at her nursing home. Mother Frederick has been hospitalized, but Jane can’t get there until late tomorrow and wonders if you would be willing to help her mother until Jane can get there. Of course you can! This is the very reason you are an advocate. (Alternatively, Jane asks you to review her mother’s medical bills because she’s afraid her mother’s insurance isn’t covering everything it needs to cover. You, as a medical billing specialist, agree eagerly to

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A New Year, and the Responsibility of Potential

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“Happy New Year to you and much happiness and success in 2015!”… You know that all business conducted by email or holiday card during the past few weeks has ended with just that greeting – or variations on that theme. It can be the hollowest of greetings – not that you don’t really wish the person you’re writing to success and happiness – of course you do! But usually when we add it to a casual correspondence because it’s easy, it’s simply cordial – a good ending – without much thought to what’s behind it. But this holiday season, I’ve

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