How much do they charge for a short fifteen minute visit? Is it more if you are a new patient? Doctors vary both in quality and in cost, therefore it is important to know whether the services being rendered are in line with the costs. It is a problem with our healthcare industry that prices charged by doctors and hospitals are not as transparent as we would typically see in many other industries. This lack of transparency prevents us from being better consumers because we simply cannot gauge the value of a doctor and/or a hospital based on their pricing.

Imagine going to different restaurants and not knowing before hand the cost of the meal. Then, when the bill arrives, that it would be too difficult to understand. This is what happens today under our healthcare system. It is specifically designed to disengage the consumer from being a good consumer.

Now we understand that many of these bills and charges are paid through our insurance company, but as more and more health insurance plans have higher deductibles, co-insurance, or exclude various services, it is becoming ever more important that we as consumers are involved. It is very easy to understand that an individual consumer will always tend to want to be a good consumer and get their money’s worth.

Health insurance is an important part of our family budget, we need more transparency from our medical providers.

It is important when searching for an individual health insurance policy to understand the health insurance company’s underwriting criteria and their process. The reason for this is more than just not to have wasted your time by applying to a carrier that is going to decline your application, but because of that very outcome, a declination of coverage.

This result serves then as a red flag to other insurance companies with respect to providing you coverage. There are even carriers that do not go one any further with an applicant once they learn that they have been declined for coverage in the past. The reason for the declination is not even looked into, for the worry that they might be providing coverage to high utilizer.

Yes, I agree this is unfair but it is the reality in which we live today. Therefore, it is important to understand a carriers process. It is better to not even apply for coverage if you along with your agent believe that due to your specific medical conditions, age, medical history, etc. will have a good chance of being declined.

There are many carriers available today and only a good experienced insurance agent can help you navigate these rough waters. The cost of the policy doesn’t change anyway. It remains the same, so why not utilize (no pun intended) their services to your benefit (again, no pun intended).

Here’s to your good health and coverage!

What do you think?

Everyone is talking about the problem, the number of uninsureds and the rising costs of healthcare. It is something important, as it relates to our health. More so, not just ours, but our children’s and our families. Healthcare has a cost, there is no other way to state this fact than just that; healthcare has a cost. It is also not an inexpensive cost, but expensive and it will increase as a percentage of our overall nation’s income (our GDP). The reason for this is as simple as just saying that while our technologies improve with research and development over time; our wants for curing ills that were incurable before will rise.

We will develop new and better technologies to improve our lifes. We will develop new drugs and treatments to battle and cure diseases. All of this will have costs.

There is no shame in this. We are dedicating ourselves to improving our health and wellness.

Nevertheless, our system, our healthcare system and the way in which it operates lends itself to many inefficiencies that have nothing to do with improving our overall care. This must change in order to maintain some semblance of a balance. Many of these inefficiencies are politically motivated and they do not benefit our overall healthcare.

More government alone is not the answer. It never is the answer, but a combination of government allowing the private sector to provide more efficient healthcare and also proving some subsized assistance in some form will improve our system.

Universal healthcare can take on so many different definitions. Yet, I believe most everyone agrees that as a nation we believe that our citizens should be able to attain healthcare at an affordable price.

Remember this, healthcare is as much a personal responsibility as it is a right to have it be affordable in our country.

Health insurance is needed to inject fairness into the system. Private health insurance is the goal, just be efficient.

The notion of affordable health care is one of our country’s most debated topics. Politicians argue about whether they have the answers to provide a better system that enables all Americans to afford healthcare coverage for themselves and their families. Obviously, one of the keys to providing affordable healthcare is through insurance.

As such, all Americans can share in the risk and thus be able to face catastrophic accidents and illnesses for which one average person alone could not truly afford. Again, all Americans, healthy and unhealthy. This is the premise of health insurance. Health insurance was meant to provide health coverage for unforeseen catastrophic accidents and illnesses that would otherwise bankrupt most of us.

Now on to the topic of affordability. This is a different concept and it has a lot to do with the value we, individually, place on our well being and overall health. By this I mean that perceived affordability, the cost of healthcare, whether through insurance or self insurance, is probably very different between two individuals with exact income levels. Two individuals, who, although they make the same income, place a different economic value on their health and well being and possibly that of their families.

One individual could place a higher perceived value on their entertainment expenses rather than on purchasing health insurance or, if self-insured, paying the necessary expenses to help them remain in good health. According to our current laws this is legal in most of our states, that is, to make the decision to not purchase health insurance or not to pay for healthcare services that would help an individual remain and/or get healthy.

This scenario would seem fair and appropriate until the individual who purchased health insurance before spending on other items now has to participate along with all other Americans, in contributing financially to pay for healthcare costs incurred by uninsured individuals who have accidents and/or illnesses. These same insured Americans have to contribute for all other Americans who decided not take care of themselves and their well being.

Now, I am not saying that we as Americans do not have an affordability problem in our healthcare system or that we could not efficiently improve our healthcare delivery system, but that in addition to affordability, there are decisions that we must face to ensure that a fair system is in place for all Americans.There must be changes to our laws that create requirements for all Americans to purchase health insurance, if they can afford it!

As our federal government debates over the system that should be put into place to provide access to affordable healthcare, we have to keep in mind the responsibility we all share to prepare ourselves for illness and accidents by purchasing health insurance. As the number of uninsured and underinsured in our country decreases, the costs to the insured will decrease proportionately.

A survey released on January 8, 2008 of preventable deaths in 19 industrialized countries ranked the United States last when it comes to providing health care to its citizens. The survey was conducted by the Commonwealth Fund, a charitable organization created to promote health care in the industrialized parts of the world. Their study, which was called “Measuring the Health of Nations: Updating an Earlier Analysis” and published in the Health Affairs journal this month, examined the death rates for individuals under the age of 75, particularly looking for problems that could have been prevented through more effective health care.

The same study had been conducted twice before: once in 1997/1998 and more recently in 2002/2003. Part of establishing the country rankings involved looking at each country’s improvement as compared to past studies. While all of the other countries saw a decline in preventable deaths by an average of 16 percent, the United States’ rate only decreased by 4%. The U. S. was also ranked last in the 2002/2003 results after placing 15^th in the 1997/1998 results. Had the United States shown similar improvements approximately 100,000 deaths would have been prevented.

The survey’s top five countries included France in first place followed by Japan, Australia, Austria, and Canada. The survey also pointed out the United States spends more on health care than do any of the countries with better results.