From the category archives:

Insurance

13 Million Uninsured 20-Somethings

Just saw the CNN report on 13 million uninsured 20-somethings in this country. New to the job force and turning down their health insurance.
What are they thinking?!?! Do they believe that they can just go out and buy what they need in terms of medical goods and services on the free market? Good grief! This [...]

Read the full article →

Dear New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo – save $97 million

Congratulations
Congratulations on your continued progress in gaining commitments from insurance companies to step away from the Ingenix Prevailing Healthcare Charges System (the database most health insurers use to determine “usual and customary rates” for out-of-network reimbursement rates). Most individuals inside and outside of the industry recognize the potential conflict of interest as well as the [...]

Read the full article →

Blind Faith in Your Insurer – Not a Good Idea

I have learned not to put complete blind faith in my Insurer. I do NOT blindly pay outstanding balances from providers and assume that my Insurer processed the claim properly, and neither should you as this story will show. Even though I’m a pretty savvy healthcare consumer (this IS what I do for a living [...]

Read the full article →

How do you know where to turn for help with healthcare costs?

An individual in our office (their name shall remain anonymous) received a letter from a gentlemen who used to perform “blue collar” work (spraying for pests) on their house and property. The letter was a plea for “some kind of donation,” help may be a better word, because his heart condition has recently rendered him [...]

Read the full article →

Put down the pills… it’s time to meditate!

On January 9th, the Wall Street Journal published an interesting and especially note worthy article titled ‘Alternative’ Medicine Is Mainstream. The article summarizes and outlines simple evidence that diet and exercise are the best “cure” for our most common ailments.
‘Alternative’ medicine, as the authors of this article title it, is what most of us commonly [...]

Read the full article →

Scared of your company’s pending move to a high deductible health plan??

In the news recently there have been a couple of articles citing some large companies moving their entire workforce to a high deductible health plan (HDHP), as a means of saving money and/or preserving health benefits. The New York Times article “Employers Offering Workers Fewer Health Plans” mentions Nissan – who is moving their entire [...]

Read the full article →

Live from Surgery Part 3

Went for the third of the four surgeries for varicose veins in my legs. Tweeted the whole procedure again (see below). And since this procedure was soooo much more graphic, I got the pix and video to go with it. To bring everyone up to speed, the first two surgeries were laser ablation from the [...]

Read the full article →

Live from Surgery – part 2

The tweets (messages on twitter) was so popular last time, I did it again for the follow up laser ablation surgery done on the back of my legs for varicose veins. You can catch the first installment here if you missed it.  And once again, I went through the trouble of reverse flowing the tweets [...]

Read the full article →

Allies in Healthcare Transparency

Just had a great interview with some allies in the battle to bring transparency to the healthcare system. I spoke with Kristy Williams of Alijor and for those not familiar with them, the concept is interesting. On Alijor, patients can connect with providers to address their specific need(s). Simply opening a line of communication between [...]

Read the full article →

Why We Do This and Post-Op Update

First off, thanks for all of the concern and support from so many people over the past few days WRT my surgery. It seems I’m telling people things and repeating myself and I hate to bore anyone, so I’m putting this together to give folks the details and use my own experience as a personal [...]

Read the full article →