One of the best parts about blogging is developing relationships with people from very different locations and different walks of life.
I run an independent public policy consulting firm, most of my clients are nonprofits. My major clients include The Heartland Institute, where I was just named managing editor of the public policy newspaper Health Care News, and I also am working with another client to create two nonprofits that will help educate the public on important issues and where candidates for office stand on those issues.
2. People start blogs for all kinds of reasons. Some see it as a journal, others as a way to write about an area of expertise. What about you? How did you come up with the idea for your blog?
I originally wrote the book The Self-Pay Patient The Self-Pay Patient, intended as a guide for people who need to pay directly for some or all of their medical care.
A friend of mine who is an author suggested I start a blog as well, to help promote the book and to expand on the topics in it. It sounded like a good idea, so I launched The Self-Pay Patient blog!
3. What blog platform did you chose when you started? Are you still on that platform?
I chose WordPress, largely for the ease of use. I’m kind of a technophobe, and I needed something simple. I’m in the process of re-launching the web site with more capabilities and resources for readers, but I’m fortunately able to stick with the WordPress platform.
4. What is your process for developing a blog idea all the way through to a blog post? Has that changed since you started, and if so, how?
There’s usually one of two ways a blog post gets written.
First, I’ll run across something, maybe a news article or blog post elsewhere, that I think might be of interest to my readers, or at least it gets me thinking about something that might be of interest.
The second way is if I run across something, often some sort of problem or issue that a reader has notified me about, and I’ll get curious and start wondering what the best options are for self-pay patients. I’ll start searching for those options, and in short order I’ve got a post written about it.
5. What steps do you take to grow your blog audience?
Not enough!
When I run across something on another web site where I think readers might be interested, I’ll often post a comment letting them know about my blog. I try not to just spam the comments section, but if someone is on a forum complaining about hospital chargemasters, for example, I might leave a comment and include a link back to a story I’ve done on a facility that doesn’t use chargemasters.
6. Personal technology is everywhere today. What personal tech do you use daily?
Too much! I’ve had a Blackberry for nearly 8 years now, but it’s probably my last one – in my opinion they’ve forgotten that first and foremost it’s supposed to be a phone, now it’s just another device that has making phone calls as merely one of several options.
Other than that I have my laptop that I do all my work on, and I’ve got both an iPad and a Kindle, both of which are very useful.
7. You’ve also published a book. What is it about?
The book is on the same topic as the blog, how people can find alternatives to conventional health insurance and save money when they pay directly for needed medical care.
8. Tell us about what went in to the process you used to write your book? Did you self publish or go a more traditional route? Were there surprises?
I self-published, largely because I wanted to get the book out fairly quickly, at least by publishing industry standards.
I can’t say there were any surprises, but everything was certainly new to me and I misunderstood a few things through the process that were aggravating, such as the process of delivering books to Amazon for them to fulfill. Nothing major, fortunately.
9. What’s one surprise you have encountered in the time since you started “Self Pay Patient”?
Probably the biggest surprise has been how broad and deep the options are for self-pay patients.
When I started writing the book, I knew a few things that I thought would be of interest to people, like the sharing ministries, cash-only doctors, and medical tourism.
But the more I looked the more options I kept finding, leading me to conclude in the end that there actually is a fully-functioning free market in health care in America, and it’s the self-pay market. It fits the textbook definition in almost every way!
10. You seem to have followed a very similar path to that of Michael Hyatt and his Platform movement. Was that intentional or accidental?
Since I wasn’t familiar with Hyatt and his work until now, I’m going to have to go with accidental! But looking at his site, yes I can see some parallels to the path he and I have both taken.
, as well as his blog.The post Interview with Self-Pay Patient Expert Sean Parnell appeared first on Conquer Technology. If you've enjoyed this, be sure to follow Thad on Twitter.