patient advocacy | APHA Blog : The Alliance of Professional Health Advocates

The Enemy of the Good – Getting Out of Your Own Way

4 minutes of reading / Leave a Comment / By Trisha Torrey / September 6, 2021

I love sayings and metaphors. Those who are regular readers of this blog know that from previous posts. I so admire and respect people who just have a “way” of phrasing words to make concepts understandable, even those that are profound and important. I especially like it when I think they are right 🙂 One of the sayings I’ve cited in previous posts has been one that’s most often credited to Voltaire: Perfect is the enemy of the good. I’m going to show you how this saying fits advocacy, and how it can have a profound effect on your practice. […]

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Rats! Seattle History Exposes a Lesson for Advocates and Care Managers

5 minutes of reading / Leave a Comment / By Trisha Torrey / July 21, 2021

I love Seattle. I have visited several times, all work-related, and always pleasurable. Such a vibrant city, so many good-hearted people. If I didn’t live so far away, I’d visit far more often. This month I visited Seattle again, and for the first time, I enjoyed several tourist days. Delightful! From the Space Needle, to the Chihuly Gardens, from the Pike Place Market food tour, to a tour of the Seattle Underground… which brings me to the point of today’s post. Early Seattle history is very much about the Seattle Underground. It’s so different from any history I’ve learned before,

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A Simple Coin Toss Could Determine YOUR Future

4 minutes of reading / Leave a Comment / By Trisha Torrey / June 22, 2021

I’m always fascinated by research results that make me go “hmmm”. Today I have one of those to share with you. Sometimes it’s not a good “hmmm” – because my thought process is – “you mean someone PAID them to do that research?” Or, “Why did they bother? That’s just common sense!” Other times I can glean something useful or at least thought-provoking – good fodder for a discussion with friends or family. That’s where this one falls. And because you are my friend (or at least you’ve invested in our relationship by reading this post) and because some among

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Your Advocacy Niche: What, Why, and How

5 minutes of reading / 1 Comment / By Trisha Torrey / June 3, 2021

Now that we are vaccinated and socializing again, we are actually going out to restaurants for dinner. Joy! It seems so “normal!” If the restaurant-choice conversation in your house is anything like the one in mine, it begins with “Where should we go?” Followed by, “What do you want to eat?” One person says, “Let’s do a steak place.” Another says “I’d love some good seafood.” Still another says “Thai for me!” Or “Let’s do Italian!” That is a NICHE conversation! Each of those restaurant descriptions is a niche. You’re choosing your restaurant based on its reputation for the kind

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Burned Out? Leaving Medicine? Advocacy Might Be Right For You

5 minutes of reading / Leave a Comment / By Trisha Torrey / May 12, 2021

Understatement warning! (Like a spoiler alert only it’s no spoiler!) Burnout among medical professionals is huge right now. The COVID pandemic has caused exhausted healthcare professionals to suffer feelings of fear, frustration, anger, sadness, and the sense that each has lost control over his or her own life… As a result, many people who work in medical environments are looking for an alternative to the craziness. The question becomes… Is there something I can do for a living, a new profession I can choose, that allows me to take advantage of my health and medical education and experience while I

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Marketing the Pivot: Getting Our Clients Back into Their Health Groove

5 minutes of reading / 1 Comment / By Trisha Torrey / April 20, 2021

As we all know, the pandemic has thrown so much of life into a tailspin! We’re constantly reminded that in order to get our lives back, we must pivot. We’re all resetting our personal lives. We’re resetting our work lives, too, as more and more of us (and the rest of our worlds) are getting vaccinated, and are opening up. After a year of pivoting in one direction, we’re now having to pivot again – back to, or into our new normal. As smart advocates and care managers, we must also remember this is true for our clients, too. For

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Just What Does It Take to Be a Successful Patient Advocate?

4 minutes of reading / Leave a Comment / By Trisha Torrey / March 31, 2021

I heard recently from a woman who represents many of you. Specifically, she wanted to know whether she could be successful if she committed herself to advocacy. She isn’t sure if she knows enough to be able to handle every client situation that comes her way. She wanted a pep talk. She wanted me to convince her that she knows enough. Yes, it was time to invoke one of my favorite quotations, provided to us by Henry Ford of Model “T” fame: “If you think you can do a thing, or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right.” The

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