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Should Insurance Provide Reimbursement to Independent Advocates?

I had interesting conversations with someday-advocates last week. I love those conversations; I always learn something from them which I can then bring back to the Alliance and the information we share with members. And then again, sometimes the questions I hear are the same ones that have cropped up over and over again, including today’s question: Is there insurance reimbursement for the work of an independent advocate? This time, I’m going to answer that question with a few questions of my own.

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That Very Very Thin Line – Do NOT Be Tom!

My husband and I moved two years ago to Florida where we now live in an “active adult” community*. We love it! We’re very happy here. We’ve met and made many new friends – people we have truly come to care about. I’m following in family footsteps. My parents did the same thing decades ago. They lived in a different city, but they, too, lived in an active adult community for 20+ years. My father, in a somewhat macabre voice, always called it “God’s Waiting Room.” And, as I learned again this past week, it turns out that we now

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Announcing: A Big Change for Admission to the AdvoConnection Directory

Many readers of this blog are familiar with, or are already listed in the AdvoConnection Directory. It’s THE place to be for private, professional, independent advocates who want to be found and hired by patients or caregivers who need them. It’s the largest, and the only “vetted” directory that exists for advocates. We”re announcing today a big change to what it takes to be listed in the directory which will affect almost everyone who has given thought to being included in the directory – but isn’t yet listed. That may include you! We’ll begin with a little history to help

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History, Tidbits of Interest, and True Confessions about Patient Advocacy Certification

Today’s post is deeply personal, the culmination of 5-1/2 years of work, thousands of hours of donated time and effort, and my hopes, emotions, and dreams for this profession of health and patient advocacy that I believe is so vital to the future of safe, effective, and fair patienthood. It regards the launch in mid-March (2018) of Patient Advocate Certification from the PACB (Patient Advocate Certification Board), how we got there, my appreciation and deep respect for the hard work of my fellow PACBoard members, and the immense amount of pride I continue to feel about being a part of

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STOP! HALT! Keep Quiet … or Lose Business

image from Graham Richardson, Flickr

Last week two of my friends invited me to participate with them in a local March for Our Lives event being held Saturday. If you are tuned into the news and politics of today, you know that marches were held to support gun control to keep people, especially our children, safe from being victims of mass murderers. Hundreds of thousands of individuals marched on Washington, DC, and in hundreds of other cities to bring attention to this issue. To my friends’ invitation, I replied no. I couldn’t / wouldn’t go. But maybe not for the reasons you might think. It’s

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How Is Patient Advocacy Like Doing the Laundry?

Would you ever hire someone to do your laundry? Many of us would answer Yes! Of course! — IF we had the money. A big IF! I suspect, however, that most of us would say no, knowing that washers and dryers make it easy to get the family laundry done, even if we dislike the task. Further, we all think we know how to get our clothes clean (short of occasional coffee and ketchup stains). Even if we feel laundry-challenged, it doesn’t seem to be enough of a problem that we would actually pay someone else to do it. However,

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Channeling Oliver Twist and the Two Steps of MORE

Oliver from Wikimedia Commons signed b.l.: C.E. Brock

This past week, for the first time, AdvoConnection Directory-listed APHA members were able to access their statistics (analytics) for their AdvoConnection profiles. How many visitors found the advocate’s profile in the last month? How many of those visitors were unique? (first visits) How long did they stay, on average, to read the profile? Of course, the idea for each listed advocate is to try to improve upon those numbers, month over month, knowing that the MORE people who contact them, the MORE clients they may end up working with… Or, with a nod to Charles Dickens, and channeling Oliver Twist,

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APHA Blog : The Alliance of Professional Health Advocates
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