My Story

My name is Lori Bleich. In 2012, my then 16-year-old son was diagnosed with a very rare vascular sinus tumor that caused profuse hemorrhaging.  Initially I was terrified, but having worked in the healthcare field since 1988, I thought I had the situation mostly under control.  Twelve hours of surgery, three blood transfusions, five days in ICU later, and a bill for half a million dollars that appeared in the mail one day quickly taught me that I did not have it under control.  I wish I’d had the guidance of a patient advocate during that time, but I was not aware such a person existed.

Since then, navigating the healthcare maze has become even more complicated. In the last 30 years, I have worked as a medical records reviewer and medical documentation specialist and have read the medical records of tens of thousands of patients in dozens of hospitals and clinics. I have witnessed firsthand how lack of proper communication between patient and physician can adversely affect patient outcomes. I have witnessed errors that should not have been allowed to happen. I have advocated for friends and family members for years, through cancer diagnoses and cardiac bypass procedures, diabetes and heart failure and so many things in between, and I know that even for intelligent, well-educated people, navigating the maze of the healthcare system in this country is daunting and stressful.

A special area of interest for me is breast cancer. My mother is a 40+ year breast cancer survivor, and much of my professional experience has been working for various breast centers and prominent breast cancer specialists. For most of the 90s, I was the Educational Coordinator for a national continuing education program in mammography run by a team of doctors here in Southern California. It was here that I first realized how important it was to empower patients, and the seed of a patient advocacy practice was planted.

For many years, I have looked for ways in which I could best use my experience to help people. I came to the conclusion that as a board-certified patient advocate, using my accumulated knowledge to help empower people to make informed healthcare decisions and navigate a complex healthcare system would be the most rewarding use of my experience and abilities. It is my hope that I can help to eliminate as much stress as possible so that my clients can focus on healing and remaining healthy.