Meet South Florida’s patient advocates, untangling the complex world of health care
In Florida’s complex and frustrating health care environment, a profession has cropped up of people who work independently on behalf of clients to coordinate their medical care.
Over the last decade, especially after the pandemic, the field of health care advocacy has evolved to encompass various services that help patients and families navigate the complicated, expensive medical landscape. Each independent advocate works differently, doing anything from helping people figure out how to take the next steps after a diagnosis to battling with insurance companies to getting patients in quickly for a test or a second opinion.
Stuart Kaufman, a Plantation attorney who was diagnosed with cancer, said his advocate Amanda Millman went with him to his first chemotherapy appointment and his last radiation treatment. He retained her services on a monthly basis and used her services until a couple of months after his last treatment to handle all the insurance paperwork. “She put in for any type of reimbursement that I wasn’t getting,” he said. “She took all of that off my plate so I could just concentrate on really what was the most important thing.”