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Why Being Too Helpful Will Destroy Your Advocacy Practice
As the director of an organization for private, independent patient advocates, this time of year is full of big excitement – and big disappointments, too. Today is January 12, and I’m excited to tell you that 32 new private advocate wannabes have joined Alliance of Professional Health Advocates just since the first of the year. For each one who eventually goes into business as an advocate, we can anticipate that they will help perhaps 100 client-patients in the next 5 years – potentially 3200 people (plus their families) who will enjoy better medical outcomes, or save plenty of money because they were helped. Remarkable! Especially exciting when you realize that so many people now have the opportunity to succeed at a new career, and so many MORE people will see better outcomes. ( I should mention, however, that the number of advocates needed is ten thousand times that – at least!) But on the flip side, there’s disappointment, too. The new year always brings some soul searching, and soul searching often produces a handful of folks who decide that they just can’t cut it as private, independent advocates. Their hearts and advocacy abilities are willing and capable, but they just can’t get enough business to keep them in practice. So, sadly, they decide to throw in the towel. They take a job somewhere else or some just retire. Some decide to start a different kind of business for which (I predict) they are also doomed to fail. You’ll understand why in a moment. Let me emphasize – for these folks, leaving private advocacy is not about being an advocate or love-lost for the profession. They may be no more or less capable of being outstanding advocates than when they got started early in their career exploration. What they haven’t learned, though, or at least they haven’t embraced, is the fact that being a successful, independent, private patient or health advocate or navigator is less about being a good advocate, and more about being a successful business owner and marketer. No matter what type of business they decide to start, they…