Start and Grow a Private Advocacy Practice

The Advocacy Liability Insurance Conundrum

upset and worried

Once in awhile a topic in the APHA Connect! Discussion Forum takes on a life of its own. The recent conversation regarding liability / professional / E&O (errors and omissions) insurance for advocates is one of them. I’m going to share part of the conversation with you, then provide some perspective, too. The Conversation Trigger Recently, the company that has provided business liability insurance to the majority of professional advocates during the past few years has decided to stop covering advocacy practices. APHA’s insurance advisor* has explained that the insurer has decided instead to focus on different kinds of insurance. …

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Starting Out? Why a Non-Profit Practice Is NOT the Right Answer for You

This is a question – or a statement – I hear frequently from those who wish to be independent health or patient advocates who are considering which business formation they need to set up to be independent.* After considerations of LLCs, or S-Corps or others, they tell me they want to establish a non-profit, then ask me if we offer resources to help them. Fay is one such advocate wannabe. She asked, “Do you have any advice for establishing a non-profit or not-for-profit agency to help patients?” Unfortunately, her question was being asked for the wrong reasons. Why?

How Much Do Patient Advocates Charge?

I’m often asked what questions people ask me most frequently. The answer is some variation of this family of questions: How much does an advocate charge? What is the hourly rate for health or patient advocates? How much money do patient advocates make? How much money do patient advocates get paid? What is the average amount patient advocates charge? We’ll begin by answering with other questions (bad form, but it makes our point…) How much does it cost to take a vacation? What does it cost to go to college? How much more can I make if I get a …

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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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3 More Myths About Building a Successful Independent Advocacy Practice

We began last week with this series of myths about starting, building, and growing an independent patient advocacy or care management practice. As a reminder, these myths are based on the comments I’ve heard from advocates who just couldn’t get a practice going – who (sad to say) failed – not because they don’t know how to be good advocates (they do!) but because they tried to get started despite their misconceptions about what it would be like to do so. This week we have three more of those myths for you to consider, in hopes these misconceptions aren’t yours. …

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The Most Expensive Business to Start

It’s entirely possible to start a new business on a shoestring. We know this, because every publication worth the paper or website it’s published on tells us so: Forbes, USA Today, Entrepreneur, all of them. It requires time, grit, determination, attention to detail, great word-of-mouth – oh – and money! More about this in a minute. The truth is – the concept of starting a business on a shoestring depends on the size of your shoes and therefore, the length and strength of their laces. It certainly doesn’t hurt if they are made of solid-gold, and you can sell them …

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Part IV: The Dirty Dozen Skills, Abilities, and Attributes of Successful Health and Patient Advocates and Care Managers

And, finally, the fourth and last in our series of skills, abilities and attributes that all successful advocates and care managers must. Find Part I of the Dirty Dozen. Find Part II of the Dirty Dozen. Find Part III of the Dirty Dozen. We’re wrapping up with 3 additional concepts that are important to the success all private advocacy and care management practices. Yes – I know the total will be 16 (and we promised only a dirty dozen!) – see Part I about my inability to count 🙂 ) Which of these describe you and your abilities? Which of …

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