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With the recession in full gear, and people concerned about their employment, it seems that the last thing that anyone has time to worry about is their health.  Yet if you ask anyone one their number one concern is in losing their job, it ends up being their employee health insurance plan and benefits, for themselves and their families.  Yet with unemployment up to 8.5%, and the number of uninsured predicted to be 45 million, it’s important even more now than ever to plan for your healthcare costs.

First things first:  Go see your doctor. Now.

Whether you know your current medical condition or not, if you have not seen a physician in the last year, you and your family should see your primary care physician as soon as possible.  Get an idea of you and your family’s health status, ask your doctor in-depth questions about any tests that need to be run, what conditions they are testing for, what treatments may be needed, and what long-term complications may occur.  If you see specialists as part of your treatment plan, make sure that you see them as well, and get updated prescriptions for all of you medications.

Even if you have no specific conditions, you should still look into modifying your health and wellness.  In this environment, many people are not taking sick days off, for fear of losing their job.  If you can prevent potential issues by exercising more, smoking or eating less, losing weight, etc. it would be silly not to do what you can; the alternative, which is an emergency room visit, poor health and possibly death, can cost you much much more.

Do your research

Now that you have medical conditions to look up, you have a variety of potential sources on the Web to look up information.  These include (but are not limited to)

WebMD
About.com/Health & Fitness
Merck Manual Home Edition

Learning what you can about your condition, combined with the information from your physician, should give you enough information to help you manage your health.

Know what your benefits cover and what they don’t

If you have an insurance plan, either on your own or through an employer, review over what your coverage plan, what your minimum deductable is, and what the limits are.  If you can’t find your insurance information, call or email your insurance salesman or your HR rep at your employer.

Also make sure that you have coverage in:

Health
Dental
Vision

Many times, though these service coverage plans are organized through your health plan, they may actually be insurance policies with different carriers, and so have different requirements. Make sure that you contact a representative at each plan and find out the limits of your coverage for each:

Health:  What is my deductable?  My co-pay?  Are my medications covered by my plan?
Dental:  How many check-ups during the year are covered?  What type of dental work is covered? Up to what limit?  How many X-rays are covered?
Vision:  How many eye appointments are covered per year?  Will the plan cover eyeglasses, contacts, LASIK/laser eye surgery?

Make sure that you have any identification cards from your insurer(s), and that you have your policy and group numbers written down in a safe place, just in case you can’t find your cards later.

Check your Financial Status

You may have very good health status, or you may find out you have some medical conditions that have to be treated, either now, or over time.  Either way, it makes sense to go through your assets and finances, either on your own, or with a financial advisor.  Why?  More and more insurance plans are pushing more health costs to patients to pay for out-of-pocket. 

Make sure that as part of any financial plan with savings, that you start putting away money for any potential healthcare costs.  You should coordinate with both your medical doctor and your financial planner as to what your ideal savings rate should be, based on your current financial situation and medical needs. 

Alternatively, if your employer offers you a Health Savings Account (HSA), you should take advantage of it if you can.  It uses pre-tax dollars, and is never taxed, even when you withdraw it (triple-tax benefit), as long as the money is used for healthcare costs.  (You need to save your receipts to claim these savings.) The maximum contribution for 2009 is $3000 for a single person, and $5,950 for family coverage.  

Keep in mind that by law, you can only use HSA ‘s with High Deductible Health Plans, meaning an insurance plan typically with a higher deductable than a typical plan.  The maximum out-of-pocket deductable + co-pay was $5,800 for an individual, and $11,600 for family coverage.

You should also look at Long-Term Care Insurance, and see what policy meets your needs best.

Recent research done by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College puts nursing home room costs at $77,000 and $20,000 in in-home care.  The article further describes how most families typically can’t absorb these costs easily.  Depending again on your financial situation, age and health, you must choose the best value for your situation.

These initial steps should help you to take care control of your healthcare finances, as well as ensure you can adequately manage your health.

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Tags: doctor visit, dr george matthews, employee health insurance, george matthews, health care, health care costs, health savings account, high deductible health plans, hsa, prescription plan

About the Author: George Thomas Mathew, MD, MBA has spent the last 20 year in the healthcare field trying to help patients get access to and afford care. He is a Yale-trained Internal Medicine physician, and has worked at General Electric, Goldman Sachs, Pfizer and WebMD. Dr. Mathew has also contributed to Businessweek’s “MBA Journal” section, and has lectured at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business for their Health Sector Management Program.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 20th, 2009 at 7:37 am and is filed under health care. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.