HISTORY
Terry Bay
President and Founder of SENIORx Patient Advocates
CASPER WY - Terry grew up in southern California, moving to Casper Wyoming in 1980 to be closer to her family. There she met her husband of 25 years, Dennis Bay and together they raised one son, Jason. They also have one granddaughter and two golden retrievers.
Terry has an M.B.A. in international business from the University of Wyoming and a B.A. in music from California State University at Los Angeles where she studied piano and choral music. As an entrepreneur of sorts, she has written business and marketing plans, sold everything from pharmaceuticals to heavy equipment, managed a not-for-profit organization, developed telemarketing programs, and managed sales teams. She and her husband also volunteer with their church, the Platte River Parkway, Five Trails Rotary, and the Casper Chamber of Commerce among other pet projects. Terry enjoys cycling, bird hunting, the outdoors, traveling, and spending time with her family. She has a special passion for working with and helping the elderly navigate the health care maze.
In 1992 Terry began working for one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. She took a sales position in Wyoming and later became a District Sales Manager in Northern Colorado. After 10 successful years in the pharmaceutical industry, Terry and her family’s lives were about to change.
In 2001, Terry’s Dad suffered a serious stroke that left him paralyzed and significantly disabled. Her Mom had end-stage emphysema and COPD. She left her lucrative salary to care for her parents with the help of her sister, who relocated from North Carolina.
Struggling to access and understand the health care system to take care of their parents, Terry and her sister learned how to navigate the maze first hand. “We made many mistakes along the way”, Terry said. “But as I look back now, I realize that God had a magnificent plan for my work very long ago. He’s been teaching and preparing me all along the way. It just took me a while to figure it out. Isn’t He amazing?!”
In the Fall of 2005, MEDICARE introduced the new Part D prescription drug benefit. Seniors and the disabled, health care providers, pharmacists, and the government were all very confused and rather overwhelmed rolling out this new program to 42 million MEDICARE beneficiaries nationwide. In an effort to reduce her own Dad’s medication costs, Terry began to learn and understand this new benefit program to help her Dad. After investing considerable time and effort in the process, she wondered if other seniors on MEDICARE could use a little help navigating the process. She understood the medications and related issues from the pharmaceutical industry’s perspective. Now she had an opportunity to help from the other side – as a consumer. Thinking that a few short months of volunteer efforts would help set seniors in the right direction, she began to volunteer at Senior Centers around the state, her church, various libraries, even accepting calls at home to help as best she could. By early 2006, Terry could see there was yet much more work that needed to be done.
As a result, in July 2007, SENIORx Patient Advocates was born.
After working from home for several months, Terry sought out a grant from Work Force Development, trained three other patient advocates, and took an office downtown Casper to expand the business from home. Today she employs five part-time/flex time employees who help serve seniors and those with disabilities statewide and beyond. In addition to helping existing MEDICARE beneficiaries answer questions about their prescription drug, hospital and medical benefits and coverage, she also helps "New to MEDICARE" beneficiaries identify and evaluate their health care options, providing a cost/benefit analysis for comparison of relevant scenarios.
SENIORx Patient Advocates also battles for insurance coverage for their clients, identifies financial resources for eligible low-income clients, develops and implements geriatric care management plans for senior clients and their families, and lobbies for better access, quality care, and rights for seniors and the disabled trying to use our health care system today.
Nor does SENIORx Patient Advocates sell any insurance or financial products. Therefore this enables them to offer unbiased information and to represent the unique needs of each individual client as their advocate. An hourly fee for patient care advocacy services applies.
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