visiting hours
Every Patient Needs an Advocate
We all need someone who’s got our back—and perhaps
never more than when we’re in the hospital. by nancy gottesman
Who doesn’t need
a little extra support
sometimes?
somebody for me to lean on,” she says.
“I didn’t have to be the strongest person
on the planet anymore.”
What does an advocate do?
Finding your way through our complex
healthcare system can stress anyone
out. But a patient advocate can provide
much-needed peace of mind to both
patients and family members and
friends by helping sort through
treatment options, insurance claims,
medical bills, medications and test
results. A good advocate can also get
the patient in to see the right specialist,
negotiate physician fees and provide
emotional support during a hospital
stay, as the patient representative did
for Chris Jacques. Typically, hospital
and nonprofit patient advocacy
organizations hire qualified staff to
serve as advocates; this can include
nurses, social workers and others with
training in patient advocacy. The
hospital pays for their services, not
you, but there are for-profit patient-
advocate services as well, which you
can hire yourself. Or you may decide
when laura long’s husband, Chris when he thinks nothing will be done to choose a family member or close
Jacques, then 64, had part of his colon about it.” Then Long remembered that friend to act as your advocate both in
removed last year, he was in a lot of she’d met the hospital’s patient repre- and out of the hospital.
pain. Unfortunately, his pain drugs sentative (aka patient advocate) brief- Laura Weil, director of the graduate
were often slow in coming and Laura ly in the surgical waiting room; she program in health advocacy at Sarah
could see that he was suffering. To figured it couldn’t hurt to speak with Lawrence College, in Bronxville, New
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make matters worse, Chris’ room was the rep again to ask for help. This York, says the need for patient advo-

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right across from a very noisy nurses’ turned out to be exactly the right thing cates has never been greater. “In the
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station, making it difficult for her hus- to do. After meeting with the patient old days, we had family physicians who
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band to get the rest he needed. “This advocate, Long’s husband got the drugs admitted you to the hospital,” explains
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was all very upsetting to my husband, he needed on time and the clatter at Weil. “Today, you are likely to be admit-
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who is a grin-and-bear-it type of man,” the nurses’ station lessened consider- ted by a specialist M.D. with whom
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ably. “I felt relieved that there was you have no personal relationship and

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says Long. “He’s not one to complain © ©
14 the patient magazine 2010
PT014__0FVP0_SP10DEPTvisiting.indd 14 2/9/10 12:47 PM
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