Like a recurring bad dream, it’s health insurance open enrollment again. Whether you have your health insurance through your employer, from healthcare.gov, or Medicare, no doubt your mailbox has been full of notifications with changes to your plan, or solicitations to new options. When I ask people about this, most say they file them in …
Kevin* is fortunate to have health insurance through his job with a local construction company. Like most of us, he didn’t look very carefully at his options; he’s 34, generally healthy, and chose the plan with the lowest monthly cost. He makes about $35,000 a year, enough to keep the wolves away, but not enough …
Your doctor recommends a test or procedure. You’re a wise consumer. You ask your doctor or hospital to pre-authorize coverage, or maybe you even get the codes they will use to bill and call your insurer yourself. You get a pre-authorization reference number or a letter, but somewhere in the documents is a statement that …
It looks like a horse. It smells like a horse. It rides like a horse. It must be a horse, right? Well, maybe, unless it’s the Famous Mr. Ed. For those of you too young to remember, Mr. Ed was a talking horse who could only be heard by his owner, and was a bit …
Short term health insurance….A horse (of course) or Mr. Ed? Read More »
Health insurance is complicated and healthcare costs a lot. If you’re not up for a complicated read, here’s the short version: Don’t use out of network providers if you can avoid it. If you think healthcare is expensive, out of network healthcare is very expensive! But if you want to dig a bit deeper, read …
In or Out, Round About – Navigating Out of Network Providers Read More »
Anymore, it seems for most of us every medical bill has a surprise when we first open the envelope! How does a provider (doctor, hospital, laboratory, imaging center) decide how much healthcare costs? It’s a pretty closely guarded secret, and it’s not uniform across providers. But suffice it to say, it definitely requires some serious …
Inevitably when I’m asked what I do and respond that I’m a private patient advocate, one eyebrow raises, followed by “What’s that?” My “Private Patient Advocate” elevator speech goes something like this: “Private patient advocates are independent professionals that help patients and their families clarify options for managing their healthcare as well as the cost …