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(Update #3) Starter Ideas for Helping Clients During a Pandemic

Covid-19 Update: March 21, 2020 Responses to my previous post indicate many advocates are beginning to emerge from your “OMG” moments and trying to figure out how to get started, to prepare yourselves for what is to come. GREAT! Here’s a start – a good idea for getting your head into the right space while you help others: Research local pharmacies, their hours, their delivery options, and phone numbers. Do some outreach to current and pending clients (call, text, or email) to ask them about their supply of their regular, daily meds, and to remind them they will need to …

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Patient Advocates and the Coronavirus

corona-virus

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know you can’t turn on the news, read news online or in a newspaper, or attend an event, or go anywhere – in person or online – without seeing or hearing something about the 2019 coronavirus. It’s the only health-related story that can knock the horror of uncontrolled medical bills lower down the list of headlines. And, of course, because its eventual impact is totally unknown, it frightens people in ways only the media knows how to frighten people. Since we all work in the world of health and medical care, and …

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Are You the Chicken? or the Pig?

If you consider a bacon-and-egg breakfast, what is the difference between the chicken and the pig? It’s a question that determines commitment. While the chicken can produce many eggs over a lifetime, the pig can produce bacon only once. The chicken may be involved in the breakfast, but the pig is totally committed. So what does that have to do with independent advocacy?

Families Need You: A Thanksgiving Opportunity

Thanksgiving and the rest of the holiday season are right around the corner. Smart health and patient advocates and care managers can find this season to be a golden opportunity to expand their reach in many positive ways. The holidays are family times. Generations come together. Inevitably someone is facing a health and/or health system challenge. Aunt Joan has a new cancer diagnosis and hasn’t even considered a second opinion. Dad needs help sorting out his meds, while daughter Francine questions about whether he’s taking the right drugs at the right times, or whether the prescriptions he’s taking are causing …

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All We Really Need to Know About Being Good Advocates We Learned in Kindergarten

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As children across the US and Canada start kindergarten this time of the year, I’m reminded of Robert Fulghum’s book, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, a classic, published more than 30 years ago. I’ve actually written about advocates and the kindergarten principles before, years ago, as applied to some real negativity we were experiencing as a profession then. But today’s piece is updated, much more positive, and contains some further advice not shared then. So much of this kindergarten wisdom is appropriate to our successful running of an independent advocacy or care management practice – …

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Self-Centered and Unbusinesslike

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Suppose I go to my favorite pizza shop and this conversation takes place: Me: I would like a pepperoni pizza with black olives, onions, and extra cheese. Johnny the Pizza Guy: Sure! I’d be happy to help you with this pizza. But first let me tell you all about my pizza experiences – the reason I like to make pizzas. When I was little, we went to my grandmother’s house for dinner every Wednesday. My grandmother always made meatloaf. She made meatloaf with ground beef and always made gravy and mashed potatoes to go with it. It tasted good. It was …

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