In this heartfelt episode, we welcome back pediatric advocate Rebeka Acosta, BCPA, for a deeply personal and inspiring conversation. Rebeka shares the emotional decision to step back from her advocacy practice to focus on her son’s health, while reflecting on the tremendous progress made for pediatric healthcare in Nevada. From her early work helping families navigate fragmented systems to the upcoming launch of the state’s first freestanding children’s hospital, she discusses the power of persistence, collaboration, and community voice in driving meaningful change.

Rebeka also opens up about how advocates can build strong relationships with community organizations, turning shared goals into lasting partnerships that improve care for children and families. She explains the value of showing up in person, building trust, and creating connections that outlast any one practice or individual. Through her work with organizations like Gigi’s Playhouse, she has helped transform how local centers empower parents, volunteers, and staff to better support families with complex medical needs.

As the conversation turns to mentorship and the future of the field, Rebeka reflects on what new advocates need most: emotional resilience, community, and a clear understanding of their unique value. She shares candid lessons from her own journey and a vision for a more unified advocacy movement, one where independent advocates, healthcare providers, and community leaders work together to create a system that truly serves children and families.

Rachel J Nash traces her journey from rehabilitation counseling roles inside large systems (state vocational services, VA, Medicaid social work) to launching a private advocacy practice anchored in ethics, transparency, and patient empowerment. She explains why board certification matters to her—adherence to a code of ethics, continuing education, and clear boundaries such as not serving as a client’s POA—and how her work today focuses on adults, especially veterans and civilians with complex, long-ignored issues. Rachel demystifies VA basics like what a 10% service-connected disability rating enables, why continuity of care and accurate documentation strengthen claims, and how presumptive exposures (e.g., Agent Orange, burn pits) can link later conditions to service. She dives into mental health advocacy, candidly noting her own bipolar diagnosis and using it to frame a practical “cake” model where medication and therapy are only two ingredients alongside sleep, movement, relationships, purpose, and faith. She calls the mental health system the hardest to navigate due to stigma, overmedication, rushed visits, poor follow-through, and scarce beds or step-down programs; her counter is meticulous preparation, written timelines, and modeling collaborative, respectful communication in the exam room. Boots on the ground in the Carolinas, Rachel attends appointments, coordinates across providers and insurers, and insists on clients having “skin in the game” as true partners. Her one big system wish: more doctors with time and latitude to practice real medicine.

Resources Mentioned:
nashadvocacy@gmail.com
704-254-1407
https://www.va.gov
https://www.pacboard.org

In this episode, we sit down with author and advocate Cynthia Overton to discuss her new book, The Clear Cane Chronicles, which explores what person-centered care really looks like in practice. Cynthia explains the evolution of models of care from traditional to patient-centered to person-centered and how the last one looks beyond the medical condition to the whole individual, considering lifestyle, relationships, and beliefs. She shares her personal journey of surviving spinal cord surgery in her twenties and how her recovery shaped her passion for improving healthcare systems to be more compassionate, collaborative, and responsive.

Cynthia opens up about the critical role her family played in her healing process and the challenges she faced navigating the insurance system when coverage for her life-saving surgery was initially denied. Drawing on established frameworks such as the Picker Principles and the National Advisory Board’s six principles, she outlines how providers and patients can work together to achieve better outcomes. She also shares how modern healthcare organizations, such as One Medical, exemplify person-centered care through accessibility, convenience, and genuine collaboration between doctors and patients.

Listeners will learn how Cynthia’s experiences and research have informed her call for systemic change, empowering patients to take an active role in their own care while urging providers and payers to adopt practices rooted in empathy, dignity, and partnership. Her book, The Clear Cane Chronicles, is available on Amazon, and Cynthia will soon share excerpts and practical insights for patients on her website and Instagram.