What to know about patient advocate jobs, careers

What are patient advocates?

Patient advocates are healthcare professionals who, unsurprisingly, represent the patient across the clinical experience. According to the Joint Commission, everyone who receives healthcare could use a patient activist, whether that activist does the work as a professional or the activist is a family caregiver.

ZipRecruiter says that patient advocates broadly focus on patient navigation, care coordination and patient education.

"As a patient advocate, your responsibilities and duties include helping clients understand their treatment options and working with doctors to get the client the best care possible, assisting your client to navigate their insurance coverage, and providing general support to the family throughout the healthcare process," the job recruitment company says on its website.

As noted above, some healthcare professionals say patient advocates can do their work informally, namely as caregivers for a loved one. For the purposes of this article, we will discuss professional patient advocates employed by a health system, healthcare payer or private, third-party company.

According to Western Governor's University (WGU), a nonprofit online university, patient advocates might have a specific specialty within their advocacy. These might include insurance or health literacy. Other job duties might include visit support, insurance support, financial support, patient health literacy and patient rights.

Additionally, some patient advocates specialize in a certain healthcare setting, a certain disease state or a certain population, such as elderly patients, per the Alliance of Professional Health Advocates (APHA).

What skills are needed for patient advocate jobs?

Because patient advocates work to streamline the patient experience, educate patients and coordinate care, they need to have a number of soft skills that help them stay organized and interact with patients and other healthcare professionals.

"To be a patient advocate, you must be compassionate, have excellent organizational and communication skills, and have a strong working knowledge of how the health and insurance industries function," ZipRecruiter says. "Patient advocates often have a history of serving others in some capacity; many have backgrounds in nursing, social services, and other fields."

WGU says patient advocates need a healthy mix of interpersonal and organizational skills, including the following:

• Advocacy/negotiation skills.
• Communication skills.
• Attention to detail.
• Organizational skills.
• Problem-solving skills.
• Financial literacy.
• Some caregiver skills.

What degrees or certifications are needed for patient advocates?

In addition to the skills required for patient advocate jobs, there is also the question of degrees or certifications necessary for the profession. However, unlike physicians or nurses, patient advocates have no standardized education or certification process.

According to ZipRecruiter, some patient advocate job listings require an associate's or bachelor's degree, usually in a field like social work. Some listings require previous work in healthcare, nonprofits or social services, although many also offer on-the-job training. ZipRecruiter recommends aspiring patient advocates gain experience through volunteer work.

According to WGU, the degree programs that lend themselves best to patient advocate careers include social work, health and human services, nursing, healthcare management and health information management.

Which jobs are similar to patient advocates?

Individuals interested in patient advocate jobs might see similar roles under different titles, including social worker, care coordinator or patient navigator. These roles share many of the same hard and soft skills, including empathy, communication skills and organizational skills.

However, there can be some subtle differences in those various job titles.

For example, social work is a specific field that requires at least a bachelor's degree in social work, although master's degrees in the field are also often needed to land a job. Additionally, social workers must complete licensure exams. This is distinct from patient advocate roles, which do not have industry-standard requirements.

Still, there is significant overlap across some of these job titles. Some patient advocates will do care coordination and patient navigation work as part of their roles, and vice versa. As such, there are many transferrable skills across these job descriptions.

How can hospitals, clinicians work with patient navigators?

It is important for hospitals to note that all hospitals and health systems accredited by the Joint Commission must have a patient advocate on staff. Many hospitals and health systems have a dedicated patient advocacy team, usually organized under a patient experience department.

Therefore, nearly every healthcare professional working in a hospital or health system will need to work together with a patient advocate to achieve good patient care. This will require clinicians and patient advocates alike to have good working relationships.

According to APHA, healthcare providers who have not previously worked with patient advocates sometimes have questions about the role of the advocate and, in some cases, can be reticent to work with them. However, the organization said clinicians who do have experience working with advocates tend to see a benefit.

"They spend less time having to re-describe or reiterate their instructions to a patient, knowing the advocate is there to facilitate with the patient," APHA says on its website. "Instead of spending their appointment time with explanations or long descriptions for patients, they can rely on the advocate to do that work for them. They further know there is an increased possibility of adherence; patients will be more apt to follow agreed upon decisions."

Similarly, APHA said hospitals are usually friendly to patient advocates because advocates can reduce the likelihood of 30-day hospital readmission, a key clinical quality metric that affects value-based reimbursement rates.

But some studies have shown that health system cooperation can sometimes limit patient advocacy efforts.

In 2019, researchers reported that a lack of cooperation between the healthcare team, healthcare recipients and the health system prevented effective patient advocacy. In particular, ineffective communication between all players impeded advocacy and ultimately increased the odds of complications for the patient.

Ideally, patient advocates would be folded into the overall care team with open communication. In a day-in-the-life article published by the New York-based Stony Brook Medicine, patient advocates are observed as having particularly close working relationships with the hospital's nursing leaders.

Patient advocates collaborate with nursing managers to receive summaries of patient issues. This allows advocates to answer patient questions, explain key concepts and coordinate certain healthcare services.

Patients and clinicians alike noted that patient advocates are helpful because they give the patient someone to talk to who is not involved in clinical care. This allows clinicians to practice at the top of their licenses while still letting patients get answers to their healthcare experience questions.

Hospitals that employ patient advocates or work with private patient advocates should consider the following:

• Team-based care approach.
• Open communication.
• Culture of collaboration.
• HIPAA regulations.
• Access to relevant health information, as consented to by the patient.

By fostering a collaborative healthcare team comprised of clinicians and patient advocates, healthcare organizations can strive for a better overall patient experience punctuated by coordinated care access. In doing so, organizations can reduce the burden on patients and family members while ensuring overall better clinical outcomes.

Sara Heath has covered news related to patient engagement and health equity since 2015.