We Welcome The Following Patient Advocacy Professionals:

Greater National Advocates is a 501(c)3 nonprofit foundation. Our stated mission is to:

“Wake up the nation to the lifesaving benefits of Independent Patient Advocacy and provide patients and loved ones with immediate online access to a trusted network of qualified practitioners.”

Our website, GNANOW.ORG, includes a robust, user-friendly national directory designed specifically for patients and loved ones who are looking for help. Consistent with our mission statement, our immediate goal is for Independent Patient Advocacy to become a common, everyday household term that’s recognized by patients, loved ones, and the healthcare community as a necessary and integrated component of our health care system. We use various media to promote Independent Patient Advocacy to the general population. GNA promotes the individual advocates who are listed in the national directory, but we do not charge member advocates anything to be listed or promoted on GNANOW.ORG. Greater National Advocates is free for advocates and free for the public.

GNA is the most visible and influential public-facing promotional tool for patient and health care advocates nationwide. We reach tens of thousands of internet users every day, and our messaging is designed to benefit the entire profession- not just Greater National Advocates. We constantly support and promote the efforts, achievements, and events of other organizations who care about patient safety and advocacy. GNA’s founder, L. Bradley Schwartz, is a practicing lawyer who lost his limbs to medical error and made it his personal mission to prevent tragedies caused by health system failures. After serving on Boards of organizations including PACB and NAHAC, he founded Greater National Advocates to help address the profession’s biggest challenge...the lack of public awareness about independent patient advocacy.

Because Independent Patient Advocacy remains a new and evolving profession, the GNA national directory includes advocates from all walks of life. Many Independent Patient Advocates have work experience in health-related industries including medicine, nursing, social work, insurance & billing, wellness, rare & chronic disease, geriatric care, disabilities, mental health, family caregiving, patient safety, employee benefits, care management, and patient rights. At GNA, our definition of “Independent Patient Advocate” includes all these professions, and many others. If you believe you have the right combination of work experience, education, credentials, and skills to assist patients and families who need health care assistance and resources, please submit your profile.

No, you don’t. The advocacy professionals listed on our site come from a variety of backgrounds. Every GNA member has their own unique education, employment, and life experiences. Many advocate members have credentials and degrees in disciplines like nursing, social work, aging life care, medicine, patient safety, family caregiving, rare disease advocacy, legal nurse consulting, and case management. Some of them obtained BCPA certification to supplement their existing credentials, while many others rely on BCPA certification as their primary professional credential. Regardless, if you have the experience and ability to help patients and loved ones, we welcome your application.

The GNA national directory is the result of a years-long, industry spanning study of the needs and wants of the professional patient advocacy community. Early on, it became evident that advocates were spending too much time, effort, energy, and money explaining what they do. Our studies revealed that the advocacy profession was not effectively communicating its message to the general public. As a result, individual advocates have been forced to market the profession by themselves. And while there are a handful of existing patient advocacy directories, they remain hard to find and even harder to navigate. The reason is because most of the other advocacy directories were simply not designed to engage to public as much as they were designed to provide business services to advocates. GNA, on the other hand, focuses entirely on public awareness and promoting the advocates who are listed in our directory.

We recognize that liability insurance coverage may factor into the decision-making process of some potential customers even though insurance for advocates is not required by any state law, federal law, or by the Patient Advocate Certification Board. Our policy is as follows: If you have insurance, GNA will display it on your public profile.

GNA understands that the decision to enter into Independent Patient Advocacy can be costly, time-consuming, and scary. Advocates pay for training, certification, marketing, web development, and CEUs. We decided to make GNA a free service in order to jump start the Independent Patient Advocacy profession and remove many of the financial barriers that discourage would-be advocates from entering the profession. GNA does not and will never charge advocates to be listed in our directory. There’s no catch.

GNANOW.ORG is the only national patient advocacy directory that was designed specifically for patients and loved ones in need. The site does not overwhelm or confuse the user with information they don’t care about, like how to start a business or network with other advocates. GNANOW.ORG is a modern, well-designed website that’s easy for the general public to use and understand. For members, the profile-listing process is painless and always free. Advanced user features, search engine optimization, blogs, and advertising grants have already resulted in increased public awareness of, and engagement with, patient and health care advocacy professionals.

GNA does not certify, educate, or train Patient Advocates. The only GNA mission is to promote patient advocacy to the public and provide a quick and easy to connect with a qualified advocate. GNA supports all credentialing and certification programs that enhance the ability of advocates to serve patients and families. GNA will recognize and acknowledge the credentials and certifications obtained by Patient Advocates but GNA is not and will not be a credentialing or certification body.

There is simply no reason for any patient advocate, health care advocate, or aging life care professional not to become a member of GNANOW.ORG. First, our philosophy is to concentrate only on what we are good at… Public Awareness and Promotion. Our development team includes creative design, health communication, consumer engagement, commercial film production, and web development professionals who work alongside industry leaders who know how to achieve one and only mission of Greater National Advocates: Waking up the nation to the lifesaving benefits of independent patient advocacy. We strongly encourage all Independent Patient Advocates to maintain their memberships in organizations that train, certify, and educate.

GNA does not and will not govern advocates. We recognize that Independent Patient Advocacy is a rapidly evolving profession with credentialing and governing authorities already in place. Greater National Advocates requires Patient Advocates who choose to be listed on GNA sites to subscribe to established ethical standards but GNA will not govern or dictate any aspect of the profession.

GNA highlights and promotes the skills and services of the individual advocates who serve patients and loved ones. To that end, GNA will publish the profiles of Patient Advocates but not the business entities of the advocates. If an advocate works for a business that provides Patient Advocacy services, they can be listed in the GNA directory and designate their business affiliations. But GNA will not be promoting advocacy businesses or firms in the directory – just the Patient Advocates themselves.