As insurance professionals, we often think we understand the intricacies of healthcare. My personal experiences over the past year have shown me just how wrong I was. In just seven months, I lost both parents to traumatic falls — my father on December 7, 2023 and my mother on July 14, 2024. These journeys revealed just how little I knew about hospital systems, the vital role of advocacy, and the profound impact of compassion and support.
Hospital systems are fundamentally designed to preserve life, often at the expense of respecting a patient’s wishes. My first ordeal with this quandary, which I wrote about in an article that was published less than a month after lightning struck a second time, was not unique.
