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Lessons from The Loss of a Patient

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Sooner or later, it happens to every patient advocate or navigator who works with patients on the medical aspects of their care (as opposed to other forms of advocacy, like billing or legal advocates). One of “our” patients – someone whose hand we have held, who we have protected from problems in the hospital, who depended on our advocacy expertise as a way to make the rough road through disease and debilitation smoother… A patient we had built a comfortable and friendly relationship with, a patient we invested ourselves and our work in… That patient dies. And we feel like […]

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Doctor Recommendations – Do You? Should You?

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I was quite surprised in a conversation recently with an advocate who is not (yet) a member of AdvoConnection. OK. That’s putting it mildly. I was actually stunned. “Why do people feel well served by you?” I asked him. “Because I have a beeline into all the good doctors,” he replied. When I asked him to explain further, he said it was because he knew the best doctors to recommend and which ones to tell patients to avoid. [Pause. Letting that sink in…] In conversations with both long-time advocates, and lawyers, too… and honestly – what makes common sense –

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Preparing Patients for Primary Care Troubles

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Good primary care physicians are becoming harder and harder to find. You may not have noticed it yet, but I predict that a year from now we’ll find it almost impossible to find primary care doctors who are willing to take on new patients – at least any primary care doctor worth seeing won’t be doing so. Smart patients AND their advocates know that today is THE day to be sure they have good relationships established with primary care doctors. Why? Two major reasons: First comes the fact that medical students spend some time in school, then choose their specialty

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Patients’ Advocates in Hospitals – Going to the Line

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Updated March 2017 From time to time I hear from a patient who complains about a situation that occurred during a hospital stay – usually the spouse or child of a hospital patient. The great majority of those notes say, “I spoke to the patient advocate in the hospital but they couldn’t do anything for me!” When I reply, I explain that the hospital patient advocate works for the hospital – not for the patient. Hospital patient advocates usually report to the legal/risk management department in the hospital and get their paychecks from the hospital. They help when they can,

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The Myth of Patient Advocacy Certification

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This post, originally written in January 2011, was accurate at the time; there was no universally recognized patient advocacy certification. That changed in early 2018 when the first certification exam was offered by the Patient Advocate Certification Board. As of June 2021, there are currently 889 BCPA certified advocates. Find updated information at the end of the post. (Updated: June 2021) I hear frequently from people asking about certification for patient advocates. It’s confusing, because they read that there are courses that will help them become certified, and then they find other pieces I have written about the lack of

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Enough is Enough! Helping Elderly Patients Make Decisions

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One of our AdvoConnection members, Ken Schueler, shared a favorite article of his, published in JAMA a couple of years ago, and a good reminder of one of our roles as patient advocates. Written by Dr. Jennifer M. Soyke, it tells about an elderly patient named Lisa who passed away from Genug Syndrome. (Unfortunately, JAMA requires a subscription to read this piece in its entirety, so please forgive paraphrasing here – but I think you’ll get the point…) Never heard of Genug Syndrome? You won’t find it in the medical literature.

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What’s the Difference Between a Patient Advocate and a Geriatric Care or Case Manager?

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One of our APHA members asked me about these differences a day or two ago… So I thought I would share my reply with you. She had called on a nursing home to see if they had interest in recommending her services to the families of some of its residents. The nursing home director replied that they had a team of geriatric case managers they worked with – and asked what services she, the patient advocate, could provide that GCMs could not. Since she really couldn’t come up with a useful answer, she asked me if I knew the differences

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