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What Is Healthcare Advocacy?
Healthcare Advocacy aims to support those attempting to navigate the healthcare system at a time of their greatest need.
What Does A Healthcare Advocate Do?
A healthcare advocate facilitates access to information to make informed decisions. Clients may not know the right questions or whom to ask to become informed. They may need a voice other than their own.
WHAT IS THE GOAL?
Ultimately, access to resources and stabilization of a situation allows clients and their families to focus on what is valuable to them.
Book a FREE 30-minute consultation to clarify your needs and determine if Karing Consulting can help.
CONTACT US for access to our advocacy, HIPAA-compliant web servicer.
WHAT IS VALUABLE?
A wife enjoys a treat with her partner after attending an outpatient therapy program close to home for deficits in coordination and swallowing after a traumatic brain injury.
RESOURCES are valuable.
A son visits a facility where the staff speaks several dialects of Chinese. The food and media are also Chinese. The family can get clear updates and know that all care needs are met.
CLARITY is valuable.
A hiker with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome can resume her weekly hikes after the right therapy, homeopathic treatments, and a low histamine diet, which helps manage her symptoms.
FREEDOM is valuable.
A partner learned techniques to help her husband continue to plan vacations. She understands how Alzheimer's Disease affects him. Utilizing the methods helps facilitate times of joy.
JOY is valuable.
A PATH TO WHAT IS VALUED
As humans, our greatest time of need is just that, ours. It looks different for all people. A time of need may be physical, emotional, social, or all of the above, as they are interconnected. Expected or not, a time of need can require more of a person than ever. More testing, more money, more decisions...the list goes on!
Some may handle complex situations independently, only requiring a sounding board to discuss options or education on a new diagnosis. Others may need someone to attend appointments to transcribe and keep track of who said what and ongoing support to keep the plan on track.
Greatest Time of Need
The right questions are specific to each person and reflect their knowledge of a relevant area and their ability to manage information input and maintain clarity. A healthcare advocate suggests questions common to one’s diagnosis but also identifies questions unique to the situation and can provide clarification of the answers. This facilitates informed decisions.
Does this new medication have side effects? What type of conditions does this specialist treat? What could the future look like with this diagnosis? What did that doctor say at that appointment? Where can I get a second opinion? What facility provides the services I need? Where can Mom go during the day so I can rest from being a full-time caregiver? When is it time to look at comfort care versus curative care? How will I pay for this? What does this program provide? Is there a doctor that speaks my language?
The Right Questions
Having accurate and timely information is essential to making an informed decision. In the healthcare world, typically, there is an ongoing quest for clarification and many unforeseen challenges mixed with A LOT of waiting. Unsurprisingly, the process can be exhausting and overwhelming and fail to promote healing and quality of life.
A healthcare advocate aims to reduce a family's load while facilitating informed decisions. Searching for resources may include gathering second-opinion sources, compiling facility profiles, finding clinical trials, completing community referrals, or providing diagnostic-related education. It is not a one-size-fits-all; if nothing else, an advocate is there to listen. In their position, they can provide support without the personal emotional weight, which allows for unbiased focus and clarity of a client's needs.
Informed Decisions
Stabilization within a health crisis may not necessarily mean that everything is resolved. For someone terminally ill, stabilization could be finding a medicine to manage nausea so they can eat with their family. For another, finding a top rehab program for their condition may be stabilizing in terms of reaching a best-case scenario, given all current factors.
Obviously, stabilization, as in a 100% resolution, is optimal, but education may be required to adjust a client's and their family's goals. An outside perspective and voice from a healthcare advocate can be beneficial in often complex and emotional times.
Stabilization
Book a FREE 30-minute consultation to clarify your needs and determine if Karing Consulting can help.
CONTACT US for access to our advocacy, HIPAA-compliant web servicer.
Nutrition
Habilitation
Spirituality
What is valued in life is personally defined, yet universally sought. It is pictured differently by everyone and influenced by life events.
Health Advocacy offers support to identify goals and adjust plans as needs change so that what is valuable to a person becomes, and remains, available.
Clinical Trial
