Surviving AmericanSurviving
American Medicine
The end of the year is quickly approaching, which typically means open enrollment time for employer-based health plans, as well as Medicare, is also approaching. Now more than ever is the time to seriously consider your options for health care, and to know what is best for yourself.
Health care and the health care industry are changing fast. Not only are health plans altering their covered benefits and adjusting their premiums, but physicians are changing their patterns of care and the structure of their practices. Many physicians are suspending their participation in health plans (by so reducing their payments), joining or resigning from participating provider lists of PPO, HMO, and other networks. They’re also considering selling or merging their practices, or even retiring permanently. Heath care reform is changing their core relationship with their patients.
To help you navigate the seemingly endless options, and to guide you toward improving your health care during open enrollment, follow these tips:
1. If you like your current health plan, check with them to find out if any benefits or premiums are changing
2. Find out from your employer’s human resources department or your health insurance agent what your options are for continuing your health care
3.Check with your doctor as soon as possible to find out if they are planning to changing their participation in any health plan you are considering for the next year, or even retiring or moving
4.If the doctor will not answer, or is not available, ask the office manager or nurse privately and confidentially so the answer will be honest
5. If you do not like your current doctor, find a new one and check which health plans the new doctor is contracted with, so you can consider switching to that plan
6.Ask the doctor and staff in the doctor’s office what plan they would recommend for you for the coming year, the advantages and disadvantages – ask them, “if I were your relative, what would you tell me to do?”
7.Never, EVER let your health insurance lapse! This may increase your health care costs astronomically, and reduce your ability to be insured in the future
For more advice on choosing health care plans, using a health insurance agent, and using employer-based insurance, see Section 4 “Insuring and Financing Your Health Care” in my book Surviving American Medicine.
