Dec. 23, 2025
How to be an empowered advocate for your health
Taking charge of your health starts with knowledge and confidence. In this episode, hosts Ron Aaron and Dr. Rajay Seudath sit down with Dr. Ilyas Yamani to explore practical ways you can become an empowered advocate for your own well-being. From asking the right questions to understanding your treatment options, learn how to build a strong partnership with your healthcare team and make informed decisions that support your long-term health.
Docs in a Pod focuses on health issues affecting adults. Clinicians and partners discuss stories, topics and tips to help you live healthier.
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Show transcript
Podcast transcript
INTRO
Welcome to Docs in a Pod, presented by WellMed. Over the next half hour, Docs in a Pod will educate you about the health and wellness of adults everywhere. Co-hosts Dr. Rajay Seudath and award winning veteran broadcaster Ron Aaron will share information to improve your health and well-being. And now here are Ron Aaron and Dr. Rajay Seudath.
RON AARON
Hello there and welcome to the award winning Docs in a Pod. I'm Ron Aaron along with our co-host Dr. Rajay Seudath. We are so pleased to have you with us. Docs in a Pod comes to you every week with a look at a variety of health and wellness issues that affect folks 65 and older and others. Every week we talk with not only great guests, but with folks who are very knowledgeable about issues that are important, really to all of us. We'll be talking in a moment about empowered advocating for your health, how to do that, and why to do that. Let me introduce Dr. Seudath. He's a board certified family medicine physician. He is a Tampa native and a lead physician for Optum. He's at the University location in Tampa, Florida. Dr. Seudath earned his medical degree from the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine. He has a passion for primary care and guiding his patients to meet their health care goals, while maintaining his patients values. Dr. Seudath enjoys educating patients and caregivers on a variety of health and wellness topics. Dr. Seudath, this is a great topic for us today.
DR. RAJAY SEUDATH
Absolutely. ItÕs something that we talk about to every single patient, and that's how they advocate for themselves and empower them for that.
RON AARON
Let me take a moment to introduce our special guest, Dr. Ilyas Yamani. He works at All Care, part of the WellMed Florida Network, where he serves as CEO, medical director and founder. He's a board certified internist and a distinguished leader in health care management and clinical operations. Dr. Yamani earned his master's in medical management from Carnegie Mellon University and a master's in clinical service operations from Harvard Medical School. As a diplomat of the American Board of Internal Medicine, he combines clinical expertise and strategic leadership to advance patient centered care. Dr. Yamani, thanks for being with us on Docs in a Pod.
DR. ILYAS YAMANI
Thank you for this opportunity. I'm really excited to be in conversation here.
RON AARON
Now, what is it that got you interested in empowering patients to be their own advocates?
DR. ILYAS YAMANI
I think the foundational aspect of one's health starts from self. Understanding yourself and your health in the time and age and area and environment that you are in. Like we say, in anything in life, context is everything. You can get how toÕs. How to do certain things on a single page with a few lines of instructions and all that. You can be given that instruction by Facebook, by YouTube, by any media you can get that information. But we all know that it is not one specific set of protocols for everybody. Every patient is unique, and in that unique environment, the needs are unique. So, I think understanding our own health. Understanding where I am. At what age? What kind of condition? What is my diagnosis? What are the different medications? What is my history? So, it's a start with knowing yourself, knowing where you are and using that information, you select your primary care doctor. When you go to your primary care doctor, you need to know that that doctor is going to be your advocate. That doctor is going to be like working like a quarterback who's going to take you as a whole human, as a holistic person, and then carry you to a different complex arena of medicine. We all know medical care is so complex. Just by going to a pharmacy and filling your prescription, that's not an easy task for a lot of patients. ItÕs very complex. Understanding the dose and understanding the timing of medications. And I'm telling you simple things. Let's say somebody must go to a surgery or a procedure and all. It's a complex thing for our patients to understand. So, not only when you understand yourself, you know your primary care doctor that is going to be advocating and working as a quarterback. So, I think that's the foundation of that.
RON AARON
Perhaps it's an age issue, but for a lot of folks, especially older folks, I'm thinking about my parents, for example, they saw the doctor on a pedestal. Rarely asked a question. Rarely said, why do you want to do that? Why don't we consider other options? What else can we do? They simply took verbatim what he or she told them to do.
DR. ILYAS YAMANI
Absolutely. What I say to my patients, and if I get a chance like I'm getting right now to come in front of other patients in the audience, I ask that you actually should be in a position to educate your doctor. In our system, if we are talking about regular primary care visit, that's 15 minutes tops. If your primary care is what we do in All Care, we actually find the way to have exposure in front of patient through video calls and through combine appointments. We try to spend more time with patients and all. But generally speaking, let's say you only have 15 minutes, in that 15 minutes, there is no humanly possible that that primary care would know you. It's not happening. What we need to do is to prepare for the visit. Educate your primary care doctor. What advocacy means and how you want that primary care doctor to function for you. What kind of availability is there from that doctor that needs to be know. What kind of ability that doctor has. Communicate with that doctor. I think those kinds of things need to be prepared before that. Be bold. Be brave that you can go and you can advocate for yourself. Don't make it transactional. Make it more human. I always say, I'm not going to play a doctor and you're not going to play a patient role. Let's become human. Let's talk like this at the same level. I think that's where we need to educate doctors from that point of view.
RON AARON
Hold that thought. I'm going to come right back to you. I want to let folks know who may have just joined us, you're listening to the award winning Docs in a Pod. Our podcast is available wherever you listen to the podcasts. We're also on the radio in several cities in Texas and Florida as well. We're talking with Dr. Ilyas Yamani. WeÕre talking about how to be an empowered advocate for your own health. Dr. Rajay Seudath is with us as our co-host and I'm Ron Aaron. Dr. Yamani, can you fire your PCP if you don't get along? If you think you're not getting what you need, can you just say I'm out of here?
DR. ILYAS YAMANI
You can, but I say don't. I think like anything else, when you are hiring that doctor, that's the time for an investigation. When you select your doctor, you have a choice. Among WellMed, you have multiple primary care doctors and all that. You have a choice and a time and it's perfectly okay to understand their availability, advocacy, their ability, affinity about that. But then, investigate a little bit more. Do a little bit more homework. How long has that doctor been in practice? How much time is this doctor spending beside this one on one? Is there any other area of contact with the doctor? Are emails available? Is texting available? There's something called care coordination. Find out what kind of a team is in place for that doctor. What was the last conference that doctor attended? Does the doctor have more interested in doing primary care, or is he also doing something else with that? That homework is needed. Let's say after all investigations and all that you did, youÕre in front of your doctor and there's something that you're not agreeing with, then you can say, listen, how about we do this? How about we go and solve this solution like that? Hopefully you don't need to really like to fire the doctor, but again, educating the doctor and helping them. After all that, you will sense whether this place is fit for me or not. If it is not, please change. You don't need to suffer and keep going for somebody who is not compatible and you don't like him and all of that.
RON AARON
Dr. Seudath, on the flip side, as a doctor, have you ever fired a patient?
DR. RAJAY SEUDATH
Yes. There are times when we have to fire patients in terms of, they are becoming unsafe for the staff. They're becoming unsafe in those situations. In that regards, yes. But to get back to, can you fire your doctor? As he says, if you don't have a trust in the person who's going to take care of you, then that's not a relationship you want to keep. I have a patient who when she came and met with me and we talked and I heard about the things she wanted to do, and she wanted to keep smoking, and she wanted to have antibiotics every single week, and she wanted to have her pain medicines and her Xanax and all these things. I said, after talking with you, I really don't think I'm going to be the kind of doctor for you. These things that you want, they're really harmful for you, and I don't think I want to be able to do that. She's been with me for the last four years. think maybe hearing that truthfulness that we're not going to have a good relationship. We need to be able to trust each other. I said, you may need to go somewhere else and that's fine. Giving the other person the option to fire you. Giving them that out is sometimes okay and sometimes what they need. So yes, you can fire your doctor because the patient is the person who's in charge. You're the person who's in charge of your care. So absolutely, if you need to do that. Your doctor wants to serve you. If you don't get the sense that your doctor is there to serve you, to teach you, to guide you, and to be part of your care, then maybe no, that's not what you're looking for. Just listening to Dr. Yamani for the last 11 minutes, I could tell that's a guy I would go through for my care because the things he's saying are the things that I feel inside.
RON AARON
We're going to come right back. When we can continue the conversation, maybe talking about when you should get a second opinion and how doctors take that request. I'm Ron Aaron. You're listening to the award-winning Docs in a Pod Dr. Rajay Seudath, our co-host is here. You just heard him endorse Dr. Ilyas Yamani. Stick with us right here on Docs in a Pod.
AD
WelMed and you can rely on WellMed and Optum doctors to care for and understand the health needs of older adults. Our commitment to quality is why the Institute of Healthcare Improvement recently designated WellMed and Optum as an Age-Friendly Health System. This means WellMed and Optum care teams provide reliable, evidence based, high quality care to older adults. To get the benefits of an Age-Friendly care team, go to wellmedhealthcare.com to find a doctor near you.
RON AARON
Thank you so much for staying with us right here on the award winning Docs in a Pod. Our podcast is available wherever you listen to your podcasts. We're also on the radio in several cities in Texas and Florida as well. Our co-host, Dr. Rajay Seudath is with us and we're talking with Dr. Ilyas Yamani. Dr. Yamani is sharing with us how to become an empowered advocate for your own health. We were talking, Dr. Yamani, about the relationship between the PCP and other providers and the patient. If you get something that doesn't seem to make sense for you, your doctor says, here's what you need. We're going to do whatever. How do you ask for a second opinion? Do you recommend that?
DR. ILYAS YAMANI
Absolutely. Today, I had a patient who has this rash on his legs. It's been two months. I sent him to a dermatologist and the biopsy was nonspecific. I did all the immunological testing on him, and I did all the markers, and we couldn't find a good response. The certain medications that we thought maybe was the reason we stopped. The rash still persists and today I saw a little bit more. This is the time as a primary care provider I offered him a second opinion. Not from a primary care point of view, but I'm going to say maybe an immunologist or a rheumatologist like that. So, it's easy for us to put the guards down and say, listen. I did everything in my power. Let's go and see this consultant and all that, but not before we are self-investigated because I believe primary care is the doctor who is in the best position to understand the patient. That's what I wanted to do as a take-home message. Please, if you do not have a primary care doctor. If someone is only seeing cardiology. If someone only seeing oncology. You are missing a huge part. I understand that the specialists are there. Again, context is everything. There are a time and place for these specialists. But primary care, I understand you completely. There are so many time cardiology will have, I will not say tunnel vision, but there is a fragmented health care that we follow. So, don't underestimate the value of primary care. Sometimes it's like I only come to you for refills, or you just order some labs, and I don't feel like you're doing anything. We may not be doing a lot of procedures or all of that, but we have the whole care coordination team who looks at you as a whole person, as a whole care and we can understand and triage and guide patients that which direction a patient needs to go. Just like the example here, I'm going to now send him to Allergy Immunology and also help him through the whole process because sometimes we get the results immediately and patients get better, but sometimes not. Sometimes we must carry that. And I think that's the most important thing.
RON AARON
One thing you had mentioned early on, you said that as a family doc, you're the quarterback. You coordinate all the care and work with the linemen, the backfield, the coaches. Is that correct?
DR. ILYAS YAMANI
Yeah.
DR. RAJAY SEUDATH
I'll jump in on that one. Yes, I absolutely feel that's correct. I think that was a very good analogy. The one I use for my patients is I often say, we are the conductor of the orchestra, and you may have a heart soloist, you may have a liver soloist, you may have a kidney soloist who's the best in the state, right? But we have to make sure that they're playing on time. You as the patient are not an audience member. You as the patient are the person who's composing the music. We're making sure those soloists are playing in your tune. That's what your primary care office is doing. You can get all kinds of recommendations from specialists. You as a patient can choose to take those or not. Oftentimes we see a heart specialists will give you medicines that put stress on your kidneys, and then your kidney guys are going to give you something that may worsen your heart function. What do you do? Which one do you listen to? As your primary care provider, we're the ones who know what's important to you because we see you all the time. We know what your hobbies are and what are the things that are important to you. So, we then came up with a regimen. This is the regimen that you need because this is what's important to you. Recommendations can come from any specialist, but the person who knows you is your primary care doctor. Empowerment comes partially from that relationship you have with your providers, whether they're specialists or most importantly, with your primary care doctor. I think that was one of the things that you had said was, can I get a second opinion? And it comes back to trust. There are some patients who say, my cardiologist said I need to go see a pulmonologist, but I didn't want to go see anybody until you said so, Dr. Seudath. They trust your primary care provider and that's part of empowerment. Empowering your patients is letting them trust you and building that trust. The other thing, though, is to empower them to, like you said, your parents or your great-grandparents, they didn't ask questions. It was MD. Me doctor. That it is the old style. Having patients ask questions because when they have questions and they understand, you get towards the why. The why as opposed to the how or the what can oftentimes be more important. That can lead to barriers like what are the barriers that are preventing you from having this therapeutic plan? What are the barriers? Only if they ask questions, hey, how am I going to be able to do this if I'm going to my daughter's house every weekend and I don't take my medicines with me. Well, why wouldn't you take your medicines with you? Well, I have them in my pillbox. I don't want to take them with me. Can we bring the pillbox with you? Oftentimes there are simple fixes for barriers. So, patients being able to ask those questions is important. Real quick, I want to say lists. I always encourage my patients to make a list. I find the patients that ask the most questions and that feel the most empowered are the ones that have a list. They have their agenda and I have my agenda. If I don't know what your agenda is, I'm going to steamroll you. I like it when patients have lists. Okay, Doc, you go through your list and I'm going to go through my list and I inevitably say, no, no, let's go through your list first because yours is far more important.
RON AARON
Let me add to that the advantage of bringing someone with you so that you don't have to remember everything that was discussed.
DR. RAJAY SEUDATH
Yes. I think having a second brain is always an excellent idea. Sometimes having your cyber brain is good. Taking notes on your phone. If they can't be there in person, we call them up. I'm sure Dr. Yamani has had many times where getting that collateral information or information from the family or having those people enhance or reinforce the therapeutic plan always leads to better outcomes.
DR. ILYAS YAMANI
Absolutely. The environment of the room completely changes when there is somebody else with the patient. It's amazing. I know we are talking more about pragmatic things, but there is something in the energy of the room. When you are there, only you and doctor, it's a very sacred interaction. But sometimes it is very subjective. I don't know about you, Dr. Seudath, but itÕs like my opinion versus patient opinion and all that kind of thing. Sometimes if there is a third person in the room, family member friend, the conversation is different. That person is kind of like a referee. I may be very subjective about my agenda, like you were describing. So, a third person helps me. I always feel comfortable if there is a third person in the room. I'm sure patients, not only from the remembrance point of view, but I think it changes the whole culture of the room, and it makes it very practical for the patient. They are comfortable to if there is somebody with them. So, I think that's a great idea if someone can come with a patient. Sometimes we bring our own MAÕs or nurses in the room like. Even though we are not doing a complete examination or something like that, but even with the conversation, it's a great idea to have a care coordinator or someone in the room with the patient where they can kind of translate. A lot of times doctors use language, which is technical, and it's not easy to understand for an average person. A lot of families, after the visit, they would ask MAÕs what the doctor meant. So, this is a good idea to have someone in the room.
RON AARON
There is a whole course on health literacy.
DR. ILYAS YAMANI
Absolutely.
RON AARON
Dr. Yamani, we've got just about a couple of minutes left. I know that in addition to the kind of work you're doing, you've been involved in the Dr. Dean Ornish lifestyle medicine program, what's that all about?
DR. ILYAS YAMANI
With my experience, I call it my backdoor entrance to this arena of lifestyle medicine. We manage cost also. We get to review the claims, and we need to see the waste in our health care and the cost of care. Something can be change and we can make an impact through lifestyle modification. Generally speaking, as a primary care doctor, we have some training in lifestyle modification. But I learned that I needed to do more, so I went back to school. I'm doing research in lifestyle medicine. Dr. Dean Ornish was a pioneer in that. So, I went to San Francisco and stayed there some time. For general terminology, it's a more sophisticated care coordination. Not only are we telling them, hey, this is the list of what you should eat, we go through from cognition and behavior training with them. How to eat, what to do and how to choose. What is specific for you? What kind of exercise is good for you at your certain age? It's not only gym that is important or it's not only yoga, sometimes it's a different mix. So, that needs more structured, detailed expertise, and that's what we do with our patients. So, this is something above and beyond regular primary care. We add lifestyle modification through lifestyle. So, I think this is a combination that we try to do with our patients.
RON AARON
I have to stop you right there. You've been fascinating to talk with Dr. Ilyas Yamani. Thank you so much, Dr. Rajay Seudath. We appreciate all of you joining us on the award winning Docs in a Pod.
OUTRO
Executive producer for Docs in a Pod is Dan Calderon. The producer is Cherese Pendleton. Thank you for listening to Docs in a Pod presented by WellMed. Be sure and listen next week to Docs in a Pod presented by WellMed.
DISCLAIMER
This transcript is generated using a podcast editing tool; there may be small differences between this transcript and the recorded audio content.
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