Private Health Management Experiences

January 21, 2018 9:44 AM

I’m looking into the companies Private Health Management and PinnacleCare to get help managing a variety of chronic health issues. However, it’s really hard to find reviews of either company online. Has anyone on here used one of these companies or something similar?

I recently started reading The Patient’s Playbook, written by the guy who started Private Health Managment (a company with a ridiculously hard to google name). His advice — on gathering medical records, picking doctors, etc — is exactly what I was looking for, but I don’t trust myself to handle this rather overwhelming amount of work to put out all the health fires that have built up. So, I want to pay someone to do some of the tasks, like gather past medical records and helping narrow in on the appropriate specialists and research-backed treatments.

But these companies are expensive! I’m going to talk to them to find out exactly how expensive, but the news articles make them sound very, very pricey. Usually, I’d build confidence in a service before buying by reading online reviews, but I can’t find any.

I’d especially like:
- your first/second-hand experience with these or similar companies
- pointers to other similar companies to consider
- pointers to the online reviews I can’t find

posted by triscuit to Health & Fitness (2 answers total)

I’m a nurse case manager, not your nurse case manager. I watched a few of the videos under “Cases” on the Private Health Management website, and it seems that what they’re offering is case management for people with life threatening/life limiting illnesses, mostly in the form of referrals to specialists (who may or may not be local to those patients, accept their insurance, etc.). In your question you mention that you have chronichealth conditions that you’d like help managing. I would suggest that if you are at all concerned about costs, you could likely find the same assistance for no additional cost via either your health insurer (guaranteed to offer case management services, with a bonus of finding you help that is in network or at least being able to help you navigate likely out of pocket expenses for non-network providers) or your primary health care provider, who can make referrals to specialists for you. There’s no need to hire someone to gather medical records on your behalf, doctors request those from the relevant providers or-increasingly-they simply view pertinent records from hospitalizations/other consultations via an electronic medical record (EMR). If you’re interested in obtaining copies of your medical records for yourself, you can call and request a copy from any provider. There is sometimes a fee associated with paper records, but more and more practices now use an EMR that you can access and print your own through a patient portal.

Getting a fast appointment, picking a specialist, having information about experimental treatments/participating in drug trials are all things you can access on your own without needing a special private case manager. If you’d be willing to provide more info on your “health fires” and what you feel your barriers are to accessing treatment on your own, feel free to MeMail.
posted by little mouth at 10:32 AM on January 21, 2018

If you have commerical health insurance, ask your insurer about this. Often they’ll have staff case manager nurses who run programs to manage chronic illnesses. They might be able to coordinate some of this (or you might have access to records online through their portal). If you’re working, see if there’s an employee assistance program, which similarly might have free resources to help you. You might consider having a local medical legal expert review and/or organize the file once you have all the paperwork gathered.
posted by OneSmartMonkey at 12:22 PM on January 21, 2018