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Frequently Asked Questions about
100 Days to Launch Your Practice
If you are interested in launching or growing a successful health/patient advocacy or care management practice, 100 Days to Launch Your Practice was developed for you.
Program registration is now open and the course begins May 21, 2024.
The instructor for this program is Stephanie Schulz, Board Certified Patient Advocate and Certified Senior Advisor. Stephanie is an alum of the 100 Days to Launch Your Practice Program. She spent 30 years in the pharmacy industry, including as a Certified Pharmacy Technician and 15 years as a General Manager, overseeing the operations, billing and insurance, customer service, and marketing for two pharmacy locations.
The 100 Days program focuses specifically on the business aspects of an advocacy practice. We assume you already have basic advocacy or care management skills, but lack the business acumen required to sustain and grow a practice. Then we fill in those business-knowledge gaps to allow you to focus on your patient-clients.
APHA Academy is a combined initiative of two advocacy and care management focused activities: The Alliance of Professional Health Advocates and PracticeUP! Online. The curriculum for 100 Days to Launch takes advantage of the best of both these worlds.
Do you have a question not answered here? Please contact us.
Questions of general interest will be added to this FAQ list.
If you have a question not addressed below, please contact us.
Registration Questions
If you wish to become a patient advocate or care manager, and know you will need assistance with starting and growing your practice, then this course will definitely be worth your money and effort. The entire focus will be on helping you understand the important business aspects of your work. It will remove the intimidation factor!
Completion of this course will give you the confidence you need to move forward, and the resources you need to help you, even when the course is completed.
Yes, registration is limited. Smaller cohorts foster a sense of community among participants, and it’s easier to connect with your peers, share experiences, and collaborate. And your instructor can provide a higher quality of instruction with limited participants.
Yes, there are three ways to reduce your cost:
If you have previously attended an in-person workshop or bootcamp through APHA or PracticeUP! Online, you may be eligible for a Frequent Flyer Discount. See the details below in Miscellaneous Questions (“If I have previously attended an APHA or PracticeUP! in-person workshop, bootcamp, or other days-long event, is there any advantage to taking this course?”) However, you can’t stack discounts.
The other possible discounts will come with any books you purchase. The three main instruction books (handbooks) are required texts for the course. You can find regular book pricing here on each book listing. If you are an APHA member, you can purchase the books with APHA discounts.
A 50% refund will be available for one week if you have not logged in to take the course. We do not provide refunds if you have already logged in, and there are no refunds for membership or the books.
Course Content Questions
(Including CEs)
Stephanie Schulz, BCPA, is the main instructor for this program. She is leading the content and curriculum written by Trisha Torrey, the founder and former director of The Alliance of Professional Health Advocates, and PracticeUP! Online, and the author of the textbooks we’ll be using throughout the course (see more about the textbooks below).
Stephanie hails from a strong background in healthcare and patient advocacy, and she was a past participant in the 100 Days to Launch Your Practice course. She is an expert in the complexities of pharmacy billing and in long-term care medication billing procedures. Stephanie works with older adults transitioning from independent living to assisted living communities and supports people through in-person and virtual medical appointments and procedures. She coordinates information and facilitates communication, helping to educate, empower, and promote the health, safety, and rights of every client. Stephanie holds an associate degree in Occupational Therapy and previously worked in both physical rehabilitation and mental health settings. She spent 30 years in the pharmacy industry, including as a Certified Pharmacy Technician and 15 years as a General Manager, overseeing the operations, billing and insurance, customer service, and marketing for two pharmacy locations.
- Textbooks: you will need the 3 instructional Health Advocate Career Series books. Find more information about them here.
- The Start and Grow Your Own Practice Handbook
- The Health Advocate’s Basic Marketing Handbook
- The Health Advocate’s Advanced Marketing Handbook
- Your onboarding email will include a link to purchase these books at a discount.
- You will want a way to take notes (digitally or using paper and pen).
There are also two tech requirements, listed in Miscellaneous FAQs (“What equipment or technology will I need to take the course?”)
All lessons will be taught through a combination of media (Zoom, videocast or podcast), and assigned reading. The lessons are self-guided with clear instructions. No two lessons will be taught exactly the same way, although they will all use simple processes to make it easy for you to know exactly what to do and where to find the information you need to complete the lesson.
All lessons will be set up on the myAPHA.org membership site, although you may be directed from there to take a lesson, or complete an assessment at PracticeUP! online. Again, your instructions will be very clear.
Some of the lessons will send you to existing courses at PracticeUP! Online. If you have already taken those courses, you’ll be a few steps ahead, and of course, you may want to repeat them (which might be helpful with the extra background you will have learned prior to taking them). If you have already earned CEs at PracticeUP! online, see the notation below (“How are CEs earned?”) for more information about how your CEs will be awarded for this program.
Both APHA Academy and PracticeUP! offer continuing education credits. APHA Academy offers entire programs that have specific start and end dates, which extended over a period of weeks or months. PracticeUP! offers individual coursework, focused on specific skills, that last from minutes to hours and are then complete. APHA Academy will leverage many of the existing PracticeUP! courses to supplement its curriculum.
Although the course was not built to prepare you for the certification exam, it will go a long way toward helping you pass it if you haven’t already. You can also prepare for the Patient Advocacy Certification Exam with the BCPA Certification Prep Course on PracticeUP!
Up to 19.5 CEs may be earned in a variety of ways, again, depending on the lesson. In all cases, you will complete quizzes and assessments to be sure you have mastered the material required for the CEs.
Some of the CEs will be awarded for completion of the courses taught at PracticeUP! Online which are integrated into this program. If you have already completed some or all of those courses, then this program will be a great add-on to that knowledge.
An important note about CEs: All BCPA CEs are approved by the Patient Advocate Certification Board in advance of course launch. APHA / PracticeUP! are required to meet stringent requirements to earn that approval, and not all this program’s content is eligible for that approval (some topics are not PACB / BCPA related).
There are two important points about earning these CEs if you have already taken PracticeUP! courses:
- If you have earned the CEs that accompany a course at PracticeUP! you cannot double your earnings. The number of CEs you eventually earn from this program will be accounted for differently. This will be further explained during our first lesson / course meeting during week 1. But don’t worry! We’ll be sure you get as many CEs from both your Academy and PracticeUP! experiences as possible.
- If you have already paid for PracticeUP! courses, we may offer refunds for them. (Find details in the Miscellaneous Questions “What if I have already taken (and paid for) courses at PracticeUP! Online?”
APHA Membership Requirement Questions
One goal of the 100 Days to Launch program is to help you best utilize available resources. Many of those resources reside behind the membership wall of APHA and require a Premium membership to access. That includes legal contracts, business insurance providers, and our well-regarded discussion forum.
There are three reasons for this requirement. First, PACE members would not have the access they need to the dozens of resources available on the APHA site (to Premium members only), so PACE members would have to upgrade – which becomes an administrative challenge overall. Instead PACE members will find an additional benefit (see below) in addition to their new, 6-month Premium membership.
Second, our goal is to get you listed in APHA’s Umbra Health Advocacy Directory by the end of the program. We’ll be fulfilling your requirements for listing as we move along in the course to make that happen. Unless you are a Premium member of APHA, you will not be able to list yourself in the directory.
We want you to have access to the coursework and the required resources throughout the entire 100 Days and provide 6-months to accomplish that.
If you are already a Premium or Premium +ADL member (listed in the Umbra Health Advocacy Directory), then we will simply extend your membership by six months. (If your membership is set to expire in 3 months, we will add six, and your membership will not expire for 9 months.)
If you are an existing PACE member, we will upgrade you to Premium membership, and will provide extra time prorated based on what you have left on your PACE membership. So, if your PACE membership still has several months left before it expires, say $25 worth of time, you’ll get the new 6 months of Premium, plus $24 worth of Premium extra (about 5 weeks worth.)
We’ll be very clear with you on how the time is added and upgraded on your membership. You’ll have the ability to review and ask questions. If you are a current APHA member and wish to know how the credit will work on your specific membership before you register for this program, please email us: academy@aphadvocates.org
No you do not. Register and pay for the program first. Once we receive your registration, we will start the membership process. Your registration will pay for 6 months of APHA Premium membership. (You can learn more about a Premium membership here.)
Miscellaneous Questions
- While a mobile device may be all you need for many lessons (mobile phone or tablet), you will need access to your computer for some lessons because the tech will be more difficult to manipulate on a mobile device.
- You will need internet access.
Yes, there are monthly Zoom meetings held to review course material and to answer questions about advocacy in general, the business of advocacy, the profession, the curriculum, and to meet with your cohort. The monthly meetings will be held on a day that works best for all participants.
All lessons in the course are made available digitally, in a specific order. You’ll find it’s very easy to transition from one lesson to the next. Your instructor will guide you on the lessons and let you know what material will be covered in the live meetings.
All lessons are self-guided, and you may complete them as quickly (or slowly) as you like.
You will continue to have access to all lessons as long as you are an APHA member. If you are unable to complete all lessons in the six-months that are part of the purchase price, then simply renew your membership to continue your lesson access.
If you’ve already taken and paid for courses on PracticeUP! that are included in the 100 Days curriculum, we will give you a credit for those fees in the form of a credit for future PracticeUP! Courses.
Yes. Absolutely. The Academy program will build on the great start you already got.
See the question about the PracticeUP! courses specifically above (Course Content Questions > L. What is the difference between the APHA Academy program and just taking courses at PracticeUP! Online?)
Whereas previous in-person events, those held in many cities across the U.S., were 16 to 20 hours in duration, and touched on some of the many basics of practice business, this program will be three times the amount of direct learning time (40-50 hours), and is far more comprehensive.
Don’t forget, too – one of the few discounts available for this 100 Days to Launch program is the Frequent Flyer 20% discount available to those who have previously attended one of our in-person learning events*.
If you have been one of our previous students, please contact us before you register. We will confirm your previous attendance, then provide you with a discount code.
*The discount for previous in-person event attendees will be provided to you if you attended at least 1-1/2 full days of workshops or bootcamps. Those who attended only one day, or who attended a networking event only, will not be offered the discount. Discounts are not approved for attendance at any other event, even if APHA was a sponsor.
Your instructor, Stephanie Schulz, BCPA, is available to you as a mentor after the course ends. If you need additional support as you build your practice, or need help as you take on your first few clients, you can purchase time or packages of hours with Stephanie.
If you have a question not addressed above, please contact us.