Lisa Berry Blackstock is an early, internationally recognized independent patient advocate and a Stanford graduate who founded Soul Sherpa® Healthcare Advocacy to help patients navigate complex healthcare decisions with practical support and empathy.

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In her joint session, Beyond Instinct: A Practical Framework for Consistent, Powerful Advocacy, Lisa Berry Blackstock brings the P2S (Problem-to-Solution) Pathways Framework to life through real-world cases and shows how a shared advocacy methodology can strengthen client outcomes, peer collaboration, and professional credibility.

Ky Corbet is the founder of Patient Advocacy & Beyond LLC and brings a rare blend of clinical nursing, healthcare informatics, and communication expertise to help untangle complex, high-stakes healthcare situations. 

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In her joint session, Beyond Instinct: A Practical Framework for Consistent, Powerful Advocacy, she introduces the P2S (Problem-to-Solution) Pathways Framework and shows how a shared methodology can strengthen outcomes, collaboration, and professional credibility in independent advocacy. 

Maura is an RN of nearly 40 years and a board-certified case manager since the early 1990s who founded Nurse Advocates in 2018 to help families navigate aging, complex health needs, and care transitions with calm and clarity.

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In her session, Developing Strategies to Close Gaps in Care, she shares practical strategies to improve communication, coordination, and outcomes during healthcare transitions.

Shlomit is a Board-Certified Independent Patient Advocate and founder of Patient Path NYC, with a clinical background in medically complex hospital care.

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In her session, Patient Advocacy in Medical Complexity: Lessons from Dysphagia Case Studies, she equips attendees with transferable strategies for care coordination, collaboration, and safer discharge planning.

Erika Warren is the co-founder of Inciteful Med, an AI-powered platform that helps patients and advocates navigate complex medical decisions using scientific evidence, drawing on both a technology background and personal experience as a patient and caregiver.

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In her session, At The Bedside: Strengthening Advocacy with AI, she shares a practical, responsible workflow for using AI to validate decisions, uncover care options, coordinate next steps, and advocate more effectively in complex hospital cases.

Dolores Mitchell is the founder and owner of A&M Financial Services, a fiduciary advisory firm, with several decades of experience that began on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange while she was still in college. She specializes in equities, fixed income, mutual funds, and alternative investments, and is known for building long-term client relationships rooted in disciplined, informed decision-making. Fluent in Italian and Spanish, she brings a multicultural perspective to her work. She is joined on stage by partners Peter Craig, CFP, and Nicholas Agnone, CPA.

Nicholas Agnone, CPA, is a partner at A&M Financial Services who specializes in simplifying complex financial and tax challenges for clients. With decades of experience in accounting and strategic planning, he helps individuals minimize tax burden and build practical, goal-driven financial strategies.

Peter Craig, CFP®, is a partner at A&M Financial Services who helps individuals build sustainable financial plans and make wise decisions when the stakes are high. He’s known for translating complicated financial options into clear next steps that align with what matters most to a family. 

Shiella Dowlatshahi Radel, MSc, BCPA, is a nationally recognized patient advocacy leader, author, and Board-Certified Patient Advocate with 30+ years in healthcare and patient engagement. Founder of Healthcare Parachute, she supports patients nationwide in complex navigation, pain management advocacy, and transitions of care, and serves on the PACB Governance Board.

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Using a real case study, her session will examine prolonged critical illness, ethical dilemmas around suffering vs. life prolongation, and the advocate’s role in supporting aligned, values-based goals of care decisions with families and care teams.

Raymond Teets, MD, practices Integrative Family Medicine in an FQHC and is the founder of Integrative Wellness NYC, an Integrative Medicine practice in Manhattan. He is an Assistant Professor at the Icahn School of Medicine and directs the Integrative Medicine Fellowship at the Institute for Family Health, with research interests including integrative care in underserved settings.

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In his session, Patient Advocacy, Integrative Medicine and Whole Health, Dr. Teets explores how integrative medicine aligns with patient advocacy by focusing on the whole person, patient autonomy, and navigating an increasingly complex and fragmented healthcare system.

CarolAnne Dube, MS, BCPA, is a Board Certified Patient Advocate and founder of Patient Advocates of Southwest FL, LLC. With 30+ years of experience across nursing, healthcare leadership, nonprofit administration, and patient advocacy, she helps individuals and families navigate complex healthcare decisions with greater clarity, confidence, and purpose.

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In her session, The Clarity Gap: Supporting Decision-Making When Understanding Hasn’t Yet Formed, CarolAnne introduces a practical framework to help families move from information overload to understanding, clarity, and more confident healthcare decision-making.

Jason Kirchick is a hematology/oncology nurse, ICU survivor, trained death doula, and patient advocate whose work is shaped by nearly a decade of bedside nursing, legislative advocacy, and community-based patient navigation. Drawing from both professional experience and lived patient experience, he helps patients and families better understand care decisions, ask stronger questions, and navigate serious illness with greater confidence.

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In his session, Building the Bridge: How Patient Advocates Can Transform Health Literacy From the Bedside to the Living Room, Jason explores how patient advocates can strengthen health literacy by helping clients decode medical jargon, prepare for care conversations, understand code status and goals of care, and navigate the transition from hospital to home.

Adam Gross is an independent patient advocate and founder of Peak Health Advocates, where he helps clients resolve insurance and billing challenges so they can focus on their health instead of paperwork. He brings a unique perspective from his prior career in healthcare technology, including work on customer service platforms, member portals, mobile applications, provider directories, and cost estimator tools for major healthcare organizations.

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In his session, Navigating Healthcare Customer Service, Adam shares practical strategies for making productive calls, using self-service channels, and understanding how healthcare customer service works so advocates can better navigate insurance, billing, and administrative barriers for their clients.

Andrew Gordon, LSW, is a licensed social worker, writer, advocate, and researcher focused on transparency, affordability, and value in health care. He writes patient victory stories for the Marshall Allen Project Substack, spotlighting how everyday people push back against unfair bills and opaque healthcare processes.

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In his session, Decoding the Bill: A Hands-On Workshop for Catching Errors, Appealing Denials, and Knowing Who to Call, Andrew gives advocates practical tools for reviewing itemized bills, spotting common errors, building stronger appeals, and knowing where to escalate when billing disputes stall.

Julie Rosenbaum, MD, FACP, is an internal medicine physician with more than 25 years of experience in patient care, medical education, ethics, and systems improvement. She is an Associate Clinical Professor at Yale School of Medicine and has served on national ethics committees, bringing deep expertise in shared decision-making, professionalism, patient safety, and complex care conversations.

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In this joint session with Shiella Dowlatshahi Radel, Julie Rosenbaum helps examine the ethical and clinical complexity of prolonged serious illness, including goals of care, suffering, shared decision-making, and the role of advocacy in helping families and care teams navigate difficult choices.

Amber Straub is a Board Certified Patient Advocate, Board Certified Critical Care Nurse, and founder of Your Nurse Champions, LLC, a nurse-led patient advocacy and care navigation company serving Southwest Florida. With nearly two decades of nursing experience, including more than ten years in critical care and intensive care settings, Amber helps patients and families navigate complex healthcare challenges with clarity, compassion, and expert support.

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In this keynote panel, Becoming a Professional Patient Advocate: From Vision to Reality, Amber joins fellow graduates of the Nurse Advocate Entrepreneur program to share what the first year of building an independent patient advocacy business really looks like — including early wins, unexpected challenges, lessons learned, and practical advice for advocates who are just getting started.