Patient Advocacy Web sites and Tools

Patient Advocacy is another growing industry on the web. The links below are non profit organizations with the .org site extension to offer assistance. In addition there are other sites as brought to my attention from a reader on this blog. In time I suspect the emergence of additional sites of this sort will also grow. Information can be helpful and it is another layer of information seeking that is sometimes needed to just get care and coverage one needs today. You can easily create a web search to find many sites of patient advocacies and most of the sites advertise that the services are free. BD

This Patients Are Powerful website is designed to walk you through the varied steps to patient empowerment. Most popular are our online printable sample letters to help you challenge your HMO for better care. You can "Request a Copy of YOUR Medical Records", "Request to See a Specialist", "Get a Second Opinion", "Choose Your Hospital", and "Get the Right Prescription Medication". Additionally, we can help with our HMO "Not Medically Necessary" or "Not a Covered Benefit" challenge sample letters. Finally, Patients Are Powerful provides Free Legal Advice in all areas of medical malpractice and a special "Injured at Work" link among our many services.

Patients Are Powerful - a Non-Profit, Medical Patient Advocacy Organization

Related Site: http://www.patientadvocate.org/

Related Site (California): http://www.opa.ca.gov/

This is another web site, although not in the non-profit area but from an individual who spent 25 years in health care also offering some words of advice and food for thought. This was brought to my attention as mentioned by a viewer who felt the site could be helpful, so I'll include the You Tube video below. You can also visit the site for email questions, etc. More advocacy sites more than likely will be forthcoming soon utilizing video and other media available on the web and this is just one example of this growing movement in the pursuit of better health care. BD