A patient advocate assists with getting a patient paid on difficult or unusual cases. Liposuction for Lipedema fits this category well–some are paid with little effort while others may take multiple appeals. While there are numerous consumer/patient medical reimbursement advocates there are few who are familiar with liposuction for lipedema. I have currently invested hundreds of hours into this project and I’m learning new things every day.
My feedback is that the time necessary to do the job well is more than most advocates can perform within a reasonable rate. Some of the tasks are time-intensive and the best strategy is to learn the steps yourself and work them. For an experienced advocate to perform all the tasks, the fee would need to be $1,000 or more. One advocate currently offers access to a wealth of checklists and templates for a fee of $750. But the hand-holding and specific actions are limited–due to the factors I’ve just mentioned. A patient advocate can be helpful, but there is no guarantee, it could be costly, and you will still need to ensure a lot of tasks are performed yourself. Since this website is funded by a vendor, everything is provided for free–you can use the information and copy-and-paste any of the information.
Here are a list of questions you should ask before hiring an patient advocate.
- How many liposuction for lipedema cases have you worked?
- How many have you won?
- Do you submit the Single Case Agreement or do I?
- Do you send or fax the necessary documents?
- Ask for references.
- Ask your surgeon if they will work with the specific advocate; some will not (important).
- Is there any guarantee or time limitations to their service?
- What is your background in reimbursement?
- Review their information and website.
- On the lost cases what were the main reasons?
- What were your highest number of appeals or longest case? (the higher and longer the better. It means they are persistent).
- What specific tasks will the advocate perform, the clinic perform and you perform?
- Ask them a few questions from my TODO checklist and compare their answers.
- Ask them for a TODO checklist; compare their checklist to mine.