Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with health and healthinsurance

Should I care that my UCSF doctor is joining Hill Physicans?

otherwordlyglow — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 13:09:34 -0800

All of UC-San Francisco's physicians will shortly end their affiliation with Brown & Toland and become members of Hill Physicians Group. What will this mean for patients? I have been bombarded with news that my primary care doctor, along with all of UCSF's doctors, will, as of 1/1/10, be switching affiliations to become a member of the Hill Physicians Group. Apart from having to switch my health insurance from Healthnet/B&T to Healthnet/HPG during Open Enrollment if I want to continue to see UCSF doctors is there some reason I should care? I guess Hill is part of the Catholic Healthcare West network. Is that significant? Does this switch have any benefits to the consumer or is it just some procedural paperwork that should be somewhat transparent from a user standpoint?

carpal tunnel and tendonitis and what to do?

Anonymous — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 11:16:12 -0800

Arm/wrist problems and no health insurance: what to do? John got (diagnosed) tendonitis last summer. It was a work related injury and he received workers comp for it (including doctors visits and physical therapy). It slowly got better. In December/January John was spending too much time typing and got (diagnosed) carpal tunnel. He was in a country with public health insurance then so was able to see a doctor. He got some sort of injections in his wrists/arms (not cortisone injections), which didn't really seem to help.

Returning to the USA, John stopped having any sort of health insurance (and has a part-time job, which does not offer him health insurance but pays enough that it disqualifies him from Medicare), but went to several free clinics asking what he should do. They told him to take NSAIDs and wear wrist braces all the time. John has been doing this for the last three weeks, but the wrist braces have aggravated the previously-mentioned tendonitis in his elbows.

Right now he has weak and tingling wrists and hands, opening jars and turning on sticky faucets causes pain and tingling. In the winter (when it was really cold), his fingers were going numbish/turning white. After wearing wrist braces for over an hour, his elbows start feeling like they did back when he first got tendonitis (pain near funny bone, pain down forearm).

He doesn't know what to do. He doesn't want to make either of his arm injuries worse, he doesn't want to ruin his arms for life, he does not have savings or enough money to be in a position to negotiate a flat rate with a doctor. Right now he is doing yoga, has just started taking vitamin B-6 (thanks to advice from the internet), isn't typing or using a computer, but is at a loss as to what his other options are (other than living with weak and tingling and weird-feeling arms for the rest of his life).

What should he do? What can he do? What are his options? (Also, this is being typed by his girlfriend Jane, who would also like advice on how she can best be supportive and help John feel better during this.) If it matters, we are in the central New York area.

How can I prevent a future health insurance co from discovering a previous dematology treatment and use it for denial of insurance?

Anonymous — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 07:45:05 -0800

I'm an American without health insurance, who needs (minor) dermatological care... how worried should I be that this will prevent me from getting private health care insurance in a year or so (denial due to prior condition)? And what can I do to prevent this from happening? After waiting for a year, I really need to have a few warts and dermatofibroma taken care of, maybe get a prescription or two. Nothing serious or particularly costly. I'm going to pay cash out of pocket, to a dermatologist or general practitioner whom I haven't seen before. I'm worried that this could be used against me in the next year or two when I will purchase private health insurance ... what should I do to prevent this? Is there a way the insurance company will discover this, etc... ?

Is this something I should worry about?

How would a big HMO like Kaiser handle a pandemic?

salvia — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 22:39:46 -0800

I'm sure Kaiser Permanente and other major HMOs have plans related to a potential pandemic, and how they would try to protect their customers' health and/or minimize financial losses. Have the plans themselves been published or leaked? Has anything summarizing those plans been published anywhere?

Help me pay 12 months of premiums for 3 months of coverage

Nothing — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 08:11:27 -0800

I live overseas for 10 months a year. I am finding it very difficult to get health insurance. No preexisting conditions, no smoking, not obese, but I am only barely a resident of California, and this seems to be a tripping point. All I want is a basic, high deductible plan for emergencies. I am currently covered in Virginia (from a while back, never told them I moved), but since my residency is California now, they probably won't cover me. What are my options? I just spent 4 hours on applications and was turned down every time. Everything else I see on google looks dodgy.

I just got $449 unexplainable dollars from my old health insurance company. Is it mine for keeps?

juliplease — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:32:40 -0800

I just got $449 unexplainable dollars from my old health insurance company. Is it mine for keeps? I recently became eligible for health insurance through my workplace, so I canceled the personal health insurance plan I'd been using. I didn't tell them that was why, though. I told them it was because I was frustrated with the inconsistent customer service I got when I needed a three part procedure. I had called ahead and was told they would cover all three parts, and then they only covered two, leaving me with a $200 bill.

When I called to get more info, I got three different reasons for why. I wrote a strongly worded letter and canceled the plan when my new insurance kicked in.

Tonight I received a check from the old company for $449. There's no letter, there's no mention of the check in my online profile, but the check has my name on it. Do I call them and deal with it, or just feel really proud of my strongly worded letter and start holiday shopping a little earlier?

Usefulness of short-term health insurance

samthemander — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 01:17:54 -0800

[New Grad Filter] Is it worth it to pay for one month of interim health insurance? I'm a 22-year-old healthy female in California transitioning from student health insurance to the plan provided by my First Real Job.

As such, I will be without medical insurance for 15 days. Neither the school's insurance plan nor the job's is flexible as to start/end dates.

I've looked around and read many previous askmefi posts about short-term health insurance and seen Assurant in particular cited as a less-than-useful investment. (The company avoids paying claims, etc.) Are all short-term policies this shady?

Do you have any direct experience with purchasing a short-term health insurance policy?

And, because I'm super-clueless, do you even think it's worth it? (Minimal coverage runs around $90/month.) I'm young and healthy, so maybe it's a waste of money to pay for 15 days of coverage. However, I will be moving during the 15 days, which does increase the likelihood of incurring some kind of an injury.

Thanks!

Will my health insurance cost go up if I test positive for an STD?

Anonymous — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 21:04:25 -0800

Can your health insurance company raise your rates when you have a positive STD test? Does this typically happen? Long story short, I recently had the occasion to need an STD screening really fast, like by-the-end-of-the-day-please fast (basically I had another date with the um... relevant person and I wanted to be able to say something concrete about the situation instead of just general ickyness).

I anticipated that I'd end up at a planned parenthood or something, but it turned out that the only thing I could find near my work was an express testing service that sends you straight to a lab for all the screenings, no doctor consult or anything. When I asked the guy on the phone about whether they would take insurance, he went off unprovoked about how messed up health care is in this country, and I COULD tell my insurance, but they'd probably double my premiums if I tested positive because they would consider me high risk, and "it's not fair, but that's how it is."

Is this true? I have health insurance through work, and I never had an entrance physical or anything like that, I just got the standard rate for a person of my general demographic characteristics.

The whole ordeal just kind of smelled funny. The price for the lab work was pretty expensive, but not beyond my means, so I just paid for it. I'm OK with the idea that I got ripped off this time; I did need the service, it didn't break the bank, whatever. But I'm curious if they guy had a point or was just completely full of it.

Web searching reveals nothing helpful, at least using the search strings I could think of.

20 pills a day x $5 per pill = Living with your parents forever.

ElmerFishpaw — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 14:20:29 -0800

When Health Insurance is the most important factor in a job search, how so you look for a new job? My girlfriend has a chronic illness that requires lots of expensive pills. The job at which she works now has decided to start having crappy health insurance which means she'll have to start paying for her pills herself. She cant afford to do this. And she cannot get off the medication.

She isnt particularly attached to her job so... my question is, What is the best way to search for a new job (office/clerical work) when HEALTH BENEFITS are the most important factor? More important even than actual wages or type of work.

Maybe a longshot but is there a way to search for jobs online using type of health insurance as a search criterion?

How forthcoming are companies about the extent of their health benefits to people interested in being hired? This is in the SF Bay Area. Thanks!

Doctor, doctor...how do I choose?

BitterOldPunk — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 22:26:38 -0800

How do I choose a primary care physician? For the first time in a decade, I have good health insurance (I'm in the US), and at age 41 it's time to take advantage of it and have all that unpleasant probing done that I've been putting off for far too long. I've googled extensively, I've contacted my insurance carrier for a list of approved providers, and I live in a city with a world-class medical center. So I should be set, right? But just picking a name at random from the list doesn't seem like the best way to go about it. I know there are sites that purport to give doctor ratings, for a fee. Has anyone used them, and are they worth it? I want a doc for more than a check-up: I want to find a genuine health-care provider who'll be my doctor for the next thirty years. Is that even possible these days? How'd you pick your doctor, what questions did you ask them, and what were your criteria? (If it matters, I'm a lifelong heavy smoker who'd like to quit, a moderate drinker, and I've never been seriously ill or even hospitalized, except for breaking my jaw in a bicycle wreck as a teenager.)

Health Insurance - Preexisting Conditions

mikw — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 17:40:03 -0800

I'm trying to find out the best option for my uninsured mother-in-law's upcoming visit which will most likely involve some doctor's visits. She has a non-life threatening chronic illness, which at the moment has fairly frequent flare ups. These are controllable, but she's not handling it very well at the moment - she seems to be getting fairly depressed and my wife is extremely concerned. She's been seeing doctors in Mexico (she doesn't speak English all that well) and some US doctors in California, both for the chronic illness and the depression, and the general consensus from everyone is she needs a change of scenery to help with the depression. We're in Washington state, Redmond specifically, so I'd like to find out what the best option to minimize medical bills would be if she did need to see a doctor while she was here.

I've been looking at some health insurance and it looks like there's upwards of 8 months waiting for preexisting conditions, but reading some other askmefi questions it looks like even if they don't pay at least having the insurance may allow us to pay the contracted rates which are a lot more palatable.

Alternately, does anyone know of practices around here that will take uninsured patients at reasonable rates? I've found lists of some of the emergency care ones but I don't really want to use these as they look like they're mostly targeted towards homeless / HIV+ etc, we don't want to take up resources that I'm sure are in extremely limited supply if we can avoid it.

So, purchase 'cheap' ($500 / year) health insurance or wing it and hope for the best?

Get Thee to a Doctor! (But Which?)

Anonymous — Fri, 04 May 2007 08:13:19 -0800

I currently have what I'd term "crisis" health insurance -- a low monthly bill with a high deductible. I haven't dealt with the plan other than to pay the premiums since I signed up. Now, I think I may have a crisis. Help! I'm in my early 20s and male. My insurance is of the $500 deductible, 20% copay to $15,000 variety. I've been on it for about year, starting the day I graduated college; I intended to use it as a safety net for severe health problems until I could get a full-time job with benefits, but then wound up working a series of temp jobs sans-benefits. I'm starting the next of these jobs next week. Somewhere in there I applied to and was admitted to grad school, but my student health coverage there (which is quite good) doesn't kick in until mid-August (and I'm moving across the country when that happens, as if this wasn't complex enough already).

Early this week, I noticed something uncomfortable in my reproductive system. I won't go into the specifics here because I already know the answer is "get thee to a doctor." I hung on for a few days hoping it was a temporary thing that'd work itself out, but it hasn't. At this point, I'd like to see a doctor and get a professional diagnosis and treatment, if necessary. My problem is thus: I've been on this plan for about a year and have yet to see a doctor. I checked the plan website last night, and now I have a huge list of physicians in my area.

So the question is, how do I contact one of these people and get an appointment to be seen and evaluated, preferably in the near future, having never met with them before? Given the enormity of the list of providers and the lack of detailed info (I get their name, contact info, and some background on which medical school they attended and when they graduated), what should I look for when I'm choosing which one to call? What can I expect to go through? I'm sure I'm kind of spoiled, because my family had really good health coverage, and my current coverage is not so great.

As an aside, I know and trust my father's primary care physician, but he's not part of my current plan. I have this idea that, since I'm not covered until $500 anyway, if the initial consultation is likely to run me less than $500, I could maybe try and see him and then get a referral to someone inside my plan, if needed. Is this a sane idea?

Weird knees!

soviet sleepover — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 11:25:10 -0800

It feels like the cartilage behind my knee cap is slipping out of place. I don't have health insurance. How serious is this & what's the wisest response? For the past few years every once in a while I've been able to feel something like the cartilage behind my kneecap slipping out of place. It's never hurt, and I can massage it back in place. I've never thought to worry about it because it happens so rarely.

In January I fell off my new bike in the most stunning display of clumsiness ever, and fell straight down onto my knee. Now, suddenly, my knee's started to... slide out of place more often, sometimes many times a day, and massaging it back into place doesn't always work immediately. It's also started to ache behind the knee cap even when I'm not putting any stress on it.

I'd go to the doctor now, but without insurance I'm afraid I'll need some incredibly expensive procedure which I can't afford, and the knee issue will then be on my record. I know MeFi Is Not A Doctor, but can anyone offer conjecture on what's wrong with my knee? Should I get insurance ASAP and 'suddenly' develop a knee problem? Yoga teachers or physical therapists, are there any stretches that might make me feel better? Should I be wearing a knee brace or something?

Please don't make moral judgments about this--and please also don't tell me I should have had insurance all along. I simply can't afford it right now unless absolutely necessary, and because I've had excellent health my entire life, the few times I have had insurance it's just gone towards routine annual check-ups.

Health Insurance for $200?

cschneid — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 23:53:22 -0800

Min-Max Health Insurance for $200 I am 90% sure I am going to take a job with a small company, and while that company doesn't have a health plan as such, part of the offer I have includes $200/month for health insurance premiums.

What should I look for inside of that limit?

About me: I'm a 21 year old male, slightly overweight, non-smoker. Healthy.

Ideas I've had:

HSA style insurance, convincing new boss to let me take savings and apply them to the HSA account instead of the premium. (initial estimates at $100 for the plan, leaving 100/month for the health savings account)

Full Coverage style insurance with doctor copays and drug benefit. (the full $200/mo)

Small rider: I'd like dental and vision as well.

Small Business Health Insurance?

richardhay — Sun, 04 Jun 2006 05:28:47 -0800

Health insurance targeted toward small business owners and their employees? My wife and I own what used to be a home based business but what is now a small busines with seven full-time employees (and about a dozen part-time employees). Our full-time employees have been, rightfully and understandably, asking us to provide health insurance.

So, I first turned to AskMe and read every thread tagged with health and insurance. I also googled various incarnations of "small business health insurance policy," but really found very little. I did submit an online interest form for United Healthcare.

My questions are these... do you know of any policies/carriers that I should contact? Is there any type of insurance plan specifically targeted for small business owners to offer their (few) full-time employees? What companies offer the most reasonable coverage for the most reasonable premiums? If you have been in a similar situation, do you have any advice for us as we embark on this process?

If it helps, the business is located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. My wife and I are covered by a plan at a university where I teach, so this would just be for our employees.

benefit cut

anadem — Mon, 14 Nov 2005 10:48:24 -0800

My employer has decided to stop paying any dependent health insurance coverage. How do I respond? In my case it's a reduction in my remuneration of over $1000/month. Our twelve-person Californian company was spun off as independent a month ago. Of those with dependents only one other has a spouse without their own cover, so this cost-saving really only affects him and me.

I'd prefer to stay with this job -- location & people are good, and pay is reasonable though not top-of-the-line, and because I'm a 62 year old programmer with no degree finding a new job might be tough.

I should find out if the insurance cuts are temporary, and whether there will be any substitute reward offered e.g. stock options? What else should I think about before talking to the boss?

Cough Cough

jennyjenny — Tue, 18 Jan 2005 13:49:16 -0800

Are there any dangerous effects to long-term heavy robotussin use? [MI] A friend of mine lost her health insurance and was then unable to afford her antidepressants. She began taking Robitussin daily -- I'm not sure how much a day, but quite a bit -- and says it does the same thing as the antidepressants did. She's waiting for medicare to kick in so she can afford antidepressants again, but in the meantime, I am concerned. Is this dangerous?

Health Insurance and Adderall

cilantro — Fri, 24 Dec 2004 18:15:32 -0800

Seven years ago, I was in college and on my parent's insurance, which included mental health coverage. I was diagnosed with ADD and prescribed Adderall which did wonders for my concentration and my grades. When school was through I lost my coverage and my prescription. (MI) Now I have my own insurance, but it doesn't cover mental health care. I'm back in college and it would be wonderful to have an Adderall prescription again. If I explain all this to my regular doctor (who I've only seen once), will he help me out, or will he think I'm fishing for drugs ? Adderall is pretty commonly used and sold illicitly, especially during finals week. I've tried getting hold of my records from my old psychiatrist, but she was a year from retirement when I was seeing her and the practice she worked from with two other doctors no longer seems to exist.

Go away from the light!

mookieproof — Thu, 30 Sep 2004 12:30:59 -0800

Catastrophic health insurance (in the US): I've just been laid off and am losing health care benefits. The COBRA premiums are insane--I'm looking for something cheap that will cover near-death experiences. (I will turn to the bottle for any minor ailments.) Anyone have any advice or plan suggestions?

Health Insurance Recommendation for a Freelancer?

Jonasio — Mon, 19 Apr 2004 01:37:58 -0800

I'm looking for respectable health insurance while I make a go of self-employment. Recommendations? If it matters, I'm a 29 yr old male with no significant health problems. However, I'm want to get some dental work soon, lasik, and something like acutane to clear up my skin. My current high-deductible insurance will be pretty useless for all of the above, and I'm shopping around. I'd love to hear recommendations or horror stories about the various options out there, particularly catering to self-employed folks.

Also, if I just go out of pocket for my prescription drugs, what's the best place to buy them on the cheap?

Experience of health care plans and life insurance please.

yoga — Wed, 10 Dec 2003 05:37:12 -0800

From the insurance dilemma department.....I'm leaving my [much despised] job this month and have been shopping for an individual health insurance policy. What. A. Jungle. Anyone here ever heard of/know about healthcareadvantageplans.com or this "insurance alternative"? I'm not sure I understand how these beasties work.

Signed, clueless. PS. I'm not doing the COBRA thing b/c the soon to be ex-employer is changing insurance companies effective Jan 1 2004, and I had visions of endless red tape. Not to mention foreseeing, "well technically you have no policiy since you left the company..." etc etc etc.