health advocates and navigators

Coloring Outside the Lines

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When people ask you what you do for a living, what do you – as an independent health / patient advocate, or care manager — reply to them? It would be simple to say “I am an advocate” which, then, may require further explanation. That further explanation would likely include examples of the kinds of work you do (I attend doctor appointments with seniors. Or, I manage medical bills and negotiate them when they are too high. Or I help people figure out what their own choices are for treatments… or…. ) That further explanation is always valuable, especially if …

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Simon and Garfunkel – an Anthem to Advocacy

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bridge

OK, yes, I’m dating myself… One of my favorite Simon and Garfunkel songs is Bridge Over Troubled Water. I’ve been humming it repeatedly over the last few weeks, and last week, we let the advocacy world know why. When you’re down and out When you’re on the street When evening falls so hard I will comfort you (ooo) I’ll take your part, oh, when darkness comes And pain is all around Like a bridge over troubled water I will lay me down Like a bridge over troubled water I will lay me down The lyrics – are like an anthem …

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Atychi-what? Overcoming Atychiphobia

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feargirl2

Over the years, dozens of professional advocate wannabes have talked to me about fear, including Fear of failure Fear of doing the wrong thing for a client Fear of failure Fear of losing their savings Fear of failure Fear of making a mistake in their work Fear of failure Fear of standing up to authority Fear of failure If your fears stand in the way of your success, then you have only two choices:

How Does a Patient Choose the Best Advocate to Hire?

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I’ve been working on updating the AdvoConnection Directory website because it was time, because search engines look favorably upon updates. And because my not-frequent-enough review of the site’s analytics produced a big surprise! A surprise I’ll share with you here today. To be clear – no changes were made to the actual search and profile areas – those all belong to our listed advocates who make those changes themselves. Instead, I edited and updated the support pages – everything from the homepage, to the About Us page, to the “how to choose and interview an advocate” page. For some background: …

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Johnny Carson, Game Shows, and a Lesson about Trust

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TV show image

Back in the 1950s, into the 1960s, a game show called Who Do You Trust? aired where couples were asked questions, and one had to “trust” the other to answer it (or not!). If you remember the show (some of us do) you may also remember that Edgar Bergen (yes, Candace Bergen’s father) was the MC for the show. However, what you may not remember is that a year or two into the show, Bergen was replaced by Johnny Carson – who often “helped” the couples get the right answers. He helped them – well – TRUST. The irony of …

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Loaded for Bear May Mean No Care

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image from Wikimedia Commons

Last week, I received an email from a woman, I’ll call her Miranda, taking me to task for an article I had written that she found online. If Miranda had her way, I’d be walking the plank about now, or on my way to life in prison. The article she found is about patient modesty and how it affects one’s ability to get medical care. It poses the problem, considers the roots of the situation, then offers ideas to help someone get beyond modesty hurdles in order to benefit from better medical care. Oh, but Miranda was not happy about …

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Because Greetings Should Be All About Them

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Honestly, I’m tired of the argument. I live and work in Florida where you would think it was some sort of national disgrace to wish someone “Happy Holidays”. As if somehow the failure to wish a “Merry Christmas” has been co-opted by political correctness as a personal insult to them. In my (not so) humble opinion, it has gotten worse in the last couple of years. I chalk that up to the facts that (1) I didn’t live in Florida until about two years ago (and therefore heard far less vitriol than seems to be standard fare here) and (2) …

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