Monday, April 30, 2007
Laura L. Casey promises to help you make confident, informed choices about health care and costs in her new book.
She has been a patient, a patient advocate and a 20-year professional in the health care industry on the financial side.
Her book, "How to Get the Health Care You Want," is a hands-on guide to managing health-care expenses. She has worked with physicians, insurance companies and collection agencies and knows the problems that crop up when working with each agency.
She advises keeping a journal of your health care journey, along with a list of expectations from the health care industry.
Perhaps the most entertaining portion of the book is when she details signs of poor service and what patients should do. For example, here are signs that you may want to drop a doctor:
• Excessive waits in the doctor's office on routine visits.
• Frequent staff or physician turnover.
• Private patient information scattered on office desks for anyone to see.
• Unfriendly or rude staff through little eye contact or staff introductions.
• Inflexibility to patient questions or requests.
Casey also recommends checking the credentials of doctors and hospitals, checking the costs and benefits of your insurance plan and creating a personal medical record to take with you whenever you see a health care professional. She includes a form for this medical record.
The book is a practical guide filled with charts, checklists and fact sheets, as well as a form to send to medical boards to report physician and nurse incompetence.
Perhaps most important, the book lists 30 questions to ask a prospective physician before becoming a patient, plus the anecdotal experiences of many patients.
"As the customer, you have the power and are in control of your health care," Casey writes.
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