In this enlightening episode of Patient Advocacy Now, we explore the vital intersection of healthcare, legal expertise, and patient advocacy with Barbara Gaynor, a seasoned registered nurse and Legal Nurse Consultant (LNC). With over 25 years of experience spanning various medical disciplines, Barbara offers a unique perspective on how LNCs can bridge gaps in patient care and legal processes.

From advocating for vulnerable patients in hospitals to ensuring comprehensive post-discharge support, Barbara's passion for communication and patient rights shines through. She shares compelling stories of navigating complex medical systems, the crucial role of advanced directives, and her work supporting clients through personal and systemic healthcare challenges.

As a Board-Certified Patient Advocate, she guides clients through the complexities of the healthcare system, empowering them to handle issues as they arise. Her services include accompanying clients to medical visits, developing questions for appointments, arranging reliable transportation, and organizing essential healthcare records.

She also talks about an interesting and positive result while handling a Greater National Advocates connection with a blind person who needed significant patient advocacy and supportive care before, during, and after open heart surgery. It’s a great story about an amazing compilation.

Whether you're a healthcare professional, caregiver, or patient, this episode delivers invaluable insights into patient-centered advocacy and the evolving field of healthcare support.

Christy Snodgrass is a registered nurse, turned healthcare reformer and patient advocate. While working in the hospital she witnessed firsthand how the complexity and lack of transparency in healthcare placed a huge burden on healthcare workers and patients. She has since built a social media platform of over 800,000 followers where she sheds light on these issues and provides the public with resources to help them navigate our difficult healthcare system.

Christy represents a new generation of advocates, and her platform has already gone a long way toward exposing the need for advocacy. This brings us to another reason we’re featuring Christy. The Healthcare Advocate Summit in Las Vegas is quickly approaching, and one of the benefits of the summit is the chance to learn about the profession, even if you’re not yet an advocate. This season 2 finale episode provides a different perspective of the profession from the standpoint of someone who uses social media to promote Independent Patient Advocacy for the benefit of the entire profession.

Rachel Westlake was a teenage kid with long, curly, red hair when she was diagnosed with large cell lymphoma at the age of 15. During more than a year of experimental treatment protocols, Rachel began to understand her own mortality, something none of her peers had any concerns about whatsoever. She beat the cancer and learned the importance of self-advocacy along the way. In 2015, she received another cancer diagnosis while living in a “healthcare desert.” Using her acquired self-advocacy skills, Rachel called on her old oncology team in NY. She got them on board, underwent a stem cell transplant, and beat cancer for the second time.

Today, Rachel is a dedicated health care advocate focused on creating compassionate, personalized, and inclusive care systems. As a self-advocacy expert and educator, she assists organizations in implementing patient-centered strategies to enhance care outcomes and foster collaborative cultures. She’s also an instrumental force behind CHCAO, the Coalition of Healthcare Advocacy Organizations.

Listen in as Rachel walks listeners through her highly personal medical and emotional journey that includes beating cancer twice and confronting the death of her father by suicide. Rachel’s life experiences gave her the courage and strength to identify others who needed help, and she was inspired to help as many as possible. Rachel discovered the profession of healthcare advocacy and dove in, realizing the impact she could have as a BCPA.

Through Rachel Westlake Consulting, LLC (RWC), she specializes in self-advocacy education, connecting patients, healthcare professionals, and industry stakeholders. Her background in coalition leadership, startup strategy, product development, and research informs her balanced, partnership-driven approach to addressing patient and healthcare community needs.