Health-Care Advocate Training

Advocates assist with prescriptions, billing issues, and many other stressful situations.

Training in the field of health-care advocacy is a developing area, with medical and educational institutions only recently beginning to develop programs and curriculum for those interested in serving others in such a capacity. Some training initiatives yield a master’s degree, while others are designed to introduce laymen to this opportunity in the health-care arena.

Significance

Health-care advocates work across a broad spectrum, encompassing legislative and policy reform, public education and face-to-face patient interaction. They may be employed by health-care facilities, governmental or social service agencies, or large advocacy groups. In most instances, their primary purpose is to act as a sort of go-between and assist patients in dealing with the many outside issues they face when ill. This may include handling medical bills or insurance claims, problems with prescriptions or even legal or criminal difficulties.

Medical Students

No focused, national advocacy curriculum exists, and professional medical organizations see a need for specialized training to make young medical students aware of the value of health care advocacy to their profession. “Incorporating advocacy training into family medicine residencies could rekindle residents' idealism and give them the skills they need to be catalysts for change, particularly in medically underserved populations,” according to an article for the American Association of Family Physicians' Web site. Stanford University’s School of Medicine has a program of this sort in place for its medical students, as does the University of New Mexico.

Experience

Advocacy is not simply for medical students. Health-care professionals, in addition to administrative personnel, social workers and those in the legal profession, are well-suited for the profession, based on their career experience. South Florida’s University of Miami School of Medicine has instituted a health-care advocacy training program for individuals interested in learning advocacy skills through assisting university physicians in improving the quality of practice care, while Cleveland State University offers an ongoing, continuing-education curriculum certification focused to medical professionals, but open to all, and requiring no prerequisites.

Degrees

Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York is the home of the world’s only master’s degree program for health-care advocates. The curriculum, offered since 1980, requires two years of full-time study (three years part-time) and provides a range of education relevant to the career. Courses include Community Health Advocacy, Economics of Health, Ethics and Advocacy, Program Design and Evaluation, Health-Care Policy, Health Law, History of Health Care in the United States, Illness Narratives: Understanding the Experience of Illness, Physiology and Disease, Fieldwork Pro Seminar, Capstone Pro Seminar, and Intentional Communication Pro Seminar. Field work is also a crucial element of the curriculum.

Identification

Depending on an advocate’s employer, neither a college degree nor health-care experience is mandatory to work in the job. Furthermore, no licensure or certification requirements are demanded by state or federal governments. But the Society for Healthcare Consumer Advocacy asserts that nine specific areas of knowledge are crucial for success as a health-care advocate: patient rights, grievance and complaint management, measuring patient satisfaction, customer service, mediation and conflict negotiation, interpersonal communication, crisis intervention, data management, and health-care management. Quality health-care advocate training should include this knowledge base.

References

• American Association of Family Physicians: Advocacy Training Can Give Students, Residents Skills to Improve Community Health
• Sarah Lawrence College: Health Advocacy Graduate Studies
• Society for Healthcare Consumer Advocacy: Nine Identified Domains of Practice
• Cleveland State University Continuing Education: Nursing and Health/Human Services