Every Patient's Advocate

Back in Business….

When last I wrote, I’d been catching up after a whirlwind Fall travel season.  And here I find myself catching up after another crazy six weeks…

I don’t just bow out completely, even if it seems so.  I’m blogging in other places, like About.com and the AdvoConnection blog, plus I have been promoting my new marketing book, and building three new websites that haven’t even made a debut yet!

So it occurred to me that that’s what I should be doing here at the Every Patient’s Advocate blog is keeping track of all the activities that help me help you.  And so it shall be.

I think you’ll find I’ve all but stood on my head!

In these past few weeks, among other things:

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My new book has come out: The Health Advocate’s Marketing Handbook. It’s written specifically for anyone who works in healthcare in a non-traditional career (anywhere from patients’ advocates to acupuncturists, from massage therapists, to counselors, case managers, navigators and more).  I’ve learned that most of these folks are marvelous practitioners, but aren’t confident about marketing themselves.

If you work in healthcare, helping others improve their health in whatever way – this book can help you – I promise!  Learn more about The Health Advocate’s Marketing Handbook.

I’ve written several new columns for the Syracuse Post Standard and Syracuse.com:

• An Advocate by Your Side takes a look at private patient advocacy and how hiring a patient advocate can be the smartest move an empowered patient will make.
• Be a Tattletale!  tells you how to report problems with your healthcare that don’t add up to a lawsuit.
• Trust Your Gut to Make Medical Decisions talks about the role of intuition in your decision-making.
• And An Open Letter to Ann Marie Buerkle, My Newly Elected (Republican/Teaparty) Congressional Representative explains why “defund and repeal” Obamacare is the wrong way to go.

Plus I’ve written untold blog posts that have sparked everything from outrage – to big yawns. Among the most inciteful (notice how that word is spelled! – it was intentional):

• Would You Marry for Health Insurance?
• A Call to Physicians: It’s Time for You to Weed Out Those Rotten Apples
• The Legacy of Christina Taylor Green’s Passing
• Where the Tucson Shootings Meet Healthcare Reform
• The AMA and CPT Codes – Getting Picky and On My Case
• What Do You Want to Be Called?  (patient? healthcare consumer? or?)

So you see?  I haven’t left you, my blog reader, out in the cold completely!  I just worked out of (blog)town for awhile.  I’ll be back again next week….

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Catching Up – You Bet Your Life!

I have been remiss… not posting for two months… and plead the fact that there just are not enough hours in the day! Of course, I’ve kept up with blog posts at About.com - all the commentary about healthcare reform, new hiccups in the system we patients must deal with and more. But yes, this, my personal blog, has been neglected. Apologies.

One of the things that has been keeping me busiest (as you can imagine) is talks about my book, book signings and interviews. It’s been fun so far! So I thought I’d share some links to videos, podcasts and more.

• I had fun talking to Dave Bullard from our local NPR station, WRVO about You Bet Your Life! You can listen to the podcast here. You’re welcome to listen to the entire conversation!  But if you want to hear just the section about You Bet Your Life, then you’ll find it begins right at 33 minutes and runs a total of 5 minutes.

• My chat with Kathleen Slattery-Moschkau for her syndicated weekend radio show was a blast, too!  We were able to cover quite a bit more ground than my conversation with Dave — I thank Kathleen for her enthusiasm about You Bet Your Life! Please do listen to this podcast because it will give you quite a bit of perspective about why you must take control of your own healthcare.

Great fun at book signings, too:

• At Creekside Books in Skaneateles, NY – great questions from the audience and many thanks to both the owner, Erika Davis and Laura Ponticello from Laura’s List of Books for Women.  They made my book launch just perfect!

• A big thanks to Marie Kulikowsky from Barnes & Noble in Dewitt, NY for handling what will be two book signings!  Yes — in an example of some of the most marvelous timing, the Syracuse Orange NCAA basketball game was scheduled for the exact hour as my book signing (hey!  I got there first!)  I emailed those on my list and told them we would reschedule the basketball game.  Afterall, I have a pretty good sense of what my friends’ priorities are — however — about two dozen people showed up anyway – including friends Leslie Rose McDonald and Cindy Masingill — here are the three of us:

….. and yes…. we have rescheduled for May 6th, 7 PM at Barnes & Nobel, Dewitt.

• Thoroughly enjoyed meeting so many people and answering so many great questions at the University of South Florida / Sarasota Lifelong Learning, too.  Truly engaged emPatients — a real pleasure.

• Finally — but certainly not least! — is a great article written by Amber Smith of the Syracuse Post Standard (yes, my disclaimer, Amber is my editor) — accompanied by a video, too!  Link to the article — or to the video below:

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So at least you know I haven’t been snoozing…. I do want to sell books, but honestly, I’m making next to nothing on those books. More than that, I want you to be an emPatient, too… it’s important. Especially knowing the road healthcare reform will take us down.

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The New Healthcare Reform – Is Patient Reform

While Congress continues its monkey shines, American patients are continuing to get substandard, too-expensive healthcare, or no healthcare at all.  We are getting sicker, and dying, because we can’t get decent care.

However, if you think this post is going to be a call to action for Congress – think again.  While I am a firm believer in healthcare reform, and while I firmly believe we Americans deserve universal care – I also know that if you are already sick, or if you get sick today or tomorrow, or even next year, then healthcare reform isn’t going to help you anyway.

The one BIG benefit to all this healthcare legislative brouhaha, no matter what the outcome so far, is that it has forced us patients to realize that Marcus Welby has left the building.  The paternalistic, omnipotent doctor-as-God who actually cared about our medical outcomes has become an endangered species — one most of us will never meet in our lifetimes. Healthcare reform discussions have made this very clear:  American healthcare is not about health or care.  It’s about sickness and money.

So what have we learned?

That in order to get the good, decent care we patients deserve, we’re going to have to take matters into our own hands. Yes — US.  WE PATIENTS are going to have to do it for ourselves. We need to be EMPATIENTS (empowered patients.)  It’s a shift in mindset that those among us who are smarter and more attentive are realizing isn’t a choice.  If we want decent medical care in the United States (or, it seems, in most countries of the world) — we must make this shift in our thinking.

I hear people poo-pooing the use of the term “empowered.”  They don’t like it because to them, it suggests that someone must GIVE us power.

I don’t see it that way.  I see “empowered” as something we take on ourselves.  We take command of our care.  We take responsibility for acquiring the information we need, then making decisions for ourselves. We do that with a variety of resources, including physicians, other patients, and media information sources like the Internet, libaries and others.

If you think about it — that’s an entirely different way of accessing healthcare than most of us are used to.  It says that, in effect, we will no longer allow healthcare to be done TO us or FOR us.  Instead we will demand it be done WITH us.

That means it’s a whole new type of healthcare reform.
In fact, it’s PATIENT REFORM.

Are you ready to take up that cause for yourself and your loved ones?  There’s no argument over money here… it’s simply a recognition that if we are going to get the health and medical care we want and deserve, we are going to have to make it happen ourselves. It’s an approach to getting the right diagnosis, the right treatment, staying safe, and making sure you don’t lose your health because you can’t afford to access care.  It’s collaborative, research based, and helps us advocate for ourselves.

Here are some places to begin:

•  What’s an Empowered Patient? (or anything at the About.com Patient Empowerment site.)

•  You Bet Your Life! The 10 Mistakes Every Patient Makes (How to Fix Them to Get the Health Care You Deserve)

•  E-Patients.net (e-patients and emPatients describe the same thing – e-patients does not mean you need to understand electronic media.)

•  The Society for Participatory Medicine

These resources link to the dozens of other resources you’ll need, too.

Yes — this is it.  The beginnings of PATIENT REFORM.  Let those in Congress, the ones who have cadillac healthcare plans and don’t really understand what the rest of us deal with continue their bickering and corporate *ss-covering.  Let them continue to kow-tow to special interests who are more about making sure they keep their corners of the healthcare money pie, with little or no regard for patient outcomes.

I declare 2010 to be the Year of the EmPatient! Empowered, participatory — finding far better outcomes than we ever could by depending on Congress or someone else to — maybe — help us out.

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The AMA, Healthcare Reform – And a Good Chuckle

Forwarded to me by a dear friend (thanks Dot!)… so I share it with you. Wish I could attribute it, but I have no idea where it came from. If you know, let me know, too. Credit where credit is due.

The American Medical Association Weighs in on Healthcare Reform

The Allergists voted to scratch it, but the Dermatologists advised
not to make any rash moves.

The Gastroenteritis had sort of a gut feeling about it,
but the Neurologists thought the Administration had a lot of
nerve.

The Obstetricians felt they were all laboring under a misconception.

Ophthalmologist considered the idea shortsighted.

Pathologists yelled, “Over my dead body!” while the Pediatricians
said, ‘Oh, Grow up!’

The Psychiatrists thought the whole idea was madness, while
the Radiologists could see right through it.

Surgeons decided to wash their hands of the whole thing.

The Internists thought it was a bitter pill to swallow, and the
Plastic Surgeons said, “This puts a whole new face on the matter.”

The Podiatrists thought it was a step forward, but the Urologists
were pissed off at the whole idea.

The Anesthesiologists thought the whole idea was a gas, and
the Cardiologists didn’t have the heart to say no.

In the end, the Proctologists won out, leaving the entire decision
up to the *ssholes in Washington.

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Do you have concerns about healthcare reform?  Have a rumor or concern you want clarified?  Pose it here and we’ll try to uncover the truth.

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