Hey everyone!

Kate is on the mend from her spinal surgery, and we are getting ready to record our next podcast episode, “Being Your Own Health Care Advocate.”

Whether you’re a professional patient like Kate, or are a relatively healthy person (and thus, are fairly unfamiliar with the ins and outs of the health care system), it’s important to know some basic, yet helpful tips on how to be better prepared for emergencies, how to become a more informed, educated patient, and how to ensure that your questions and concerns are addressed.

Our next episode will focus on how to be your own health care advocate.

Are you doing all that you can to advocate for yourself with medical personnel? Have any of you felt dismissed or unheard when you tried to voice your concerns? Has anyone been caught off-guard when a medical emergency happened and you weren’t prepared to make such a huge decision in so little time? Do you have the proper legal documents prepared to explain what kind of life-sustaining measures you’d want performed on you if you weren’t able to voice them yourself?

We’d love to hear your stories, positive or negative, about being your own health care advocate. Please feel free to leave a comment below, send us a message via Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr or Google+, or write us an email at hammertimewithnikkiandkate@gmail.com.

And as always, we’d love to hear your suggestions for future episode topics.

Wishing you and yours nothing but health and happiness!

Best,

Nikki and Kate