advocate best practices

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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Be Bold! Like Wearing Pants to School

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wearing pants to school

OK – I will set the stage for this blog post with a true confession… I graduated from high school in 1969. (Go ahead – do the math!) So you can imagine I was interested in this post on Mashable called October 1969 Hippie High School. Now, granted, the photo above was taken 4 months after I graduated in June. But still – there is something about these photos that isn’t immediately identifiable today as a BIG DEAL. But it was a big deal! At the time it was HUGE. That is, some of the girls were wearing PANTs to school. …

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Sorry. That’s Not Good Enough

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One of the most visible changes in the new health insurance reality are the medical bill surprises people are receiving that they never received before, for services covered previously as a matter of course. You know – whereas their insurance automatically approved a CT scan for purpose X in the past, now patients need pre-approval. Without that pre-approval, payment for that CT scan comes out of their own pockets – totally unexpected and usually very expensive. Most of us learn the hard way that we need to get permission for many of the services that used to be automatically approved. …

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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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Santa Can Teach Us Advocates Plenty About Good Branding

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santa-claus

The holidays are here! And whether or not Santa plays a role in your own celebration, you have to give it to him – he may be THE most recognizable brand in the world. It struck me this week that what Santa stands for, and what advocates stand for, are very similar: selflessness and improving others’ lives. So what can independent health advocates learn from Santa Claus about branding ourselves, our work, and our practices? Plenty. Basic branding is based on three things: 1. Recognition We all recognize Santa. Even variations on Santa imposed by others – we still know …

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The Weakest Link

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Remember that TV show from a decade or more ago? When a contestant failed to answer a quiz question correctly, the host would sternly declare, “YOU ARE the WEAKEST LINK. GOOD-BYE!”? Remaining, of course, were the more knowledgeable contestants, presumably a stronger chain of smarter people who could get the job done. Oh man, how I wish I had been able to invoke that host’s dismissal powers this past week! As both my husband and I had to deal with different parts of the healthcare system, we encountered roadblocks – the weakest links – and in each case, we had …

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