Quit Wasting My Healthcare

Costs are Rising: You need Compass!

October 19, 2009 – 6:00 am by ScottSchoenvogel

The most recent healthcare article on CNN announces dramatic increases in employee healthcare costs this year: http://money.cnn.com/2009/10/19/news/economy/healthcare_openenrollment_changes/index.htm. While no-one wants to see healthcare costs continuing to increase, you can prepare and protect yourself against these changes when you use Compass as your guide. We are only the only service with the market intelligence and consumer savvy to help you get ahead of your healthcare decision making. Compass gives you the tools to know how to spend your money wisely while accessing the quality care you need.

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A Great Column in “The Atlantic”

September 18, 2009 – 9:00 am by ScottSchoenvogel

David Goldhill wrote an article for the The Atlantic titled "How American Healthcare Killed my Father". In the article, he uses his father's death from infection in a NY hospital to discuss healthcare reform and consumerism. David is a self-professed Democrat but he is concerned about reform's effort to disassociate consumerism from the healthcare service process. Here is his last paragraph: "Before we further remove ourselves as direct consumers of healthcare -with all of our beneficial influence on quality, service, and price - let me ask you to consider one more question. Imagine my father's hospital had to submit the bill for his "care" not to a government bureaucracy but to my grieving mother. Do you really believe the hospital - forced to face the victim of its poor quality service, forced to collect the bill from the real customer - wouldn't have figured out how to make its doctors wash their ...

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Medical Billing Nightmares

September 16, 2009 – 9:23 am by ScottSchoenvogel

CNN published an artile on avoiding medical billing disasters: http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/09/16/health.medical.bills/index.html The problem is that the entire article missed the one crucial step that is important before going for any type of healthcare service: be an educated consumer. If you know how much the procedure will cost, where to get it for less, and what types of add-on drive additional cost, you will be prepared to manage your healthcare bill before it ever arrives and protect yourself from potentially devastating costs.

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Advocacy is Just the Beginning

September 14, 2009 – 8:00 am by ScottSchoenvogel

The NYTimes had a recent article on advocacy: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/12/health/12patient.html?_r=1&emc=eta1 Unfortunately, this article is a regression to the type of article written 3-5 years ago. The field of advocacy is changing dramatically from the "find a doctor" / "fight a bill" to a comprehensive professional service that helps people not only navigate the health system and deal with problems but sophisticated pricing and quality data as well that allows you to become an empowered consumer. While the old world of patient advocacy will continue to exist, I would encourage patients and consumers to seek out this new level of professional experience to take control of their health care.

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Increasing Focus on Cost Comparison Tools

September 11, 2009 – 2:16 pm by ScottSchoenvogel

Davis Martin from CNN just wrote a new story on how to bargain hunt for healthcare services: http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/09/10/health.care.price.comparison/index.html This is just one article in a larger number of writings recently that have started to focus on how to accurately calculate / negotiate the true cost of care (thus saving money by comparison shopping and becoming effective healthcare consumers). Compass is thrilled by the focus on what it believes is the key to controlling healthcare costs. Unfortunately, some of the messages in these articles are misleading. The true cost of care is what your insurance has contracted to pay your doctor or hospital. The hospital pricing tools sponsored by hospitals typically reflect only the charge. The charge is generally unrelated to the true cost of care which is set by a contract with your insurance company. Likewise, services such as New Choice Health simply use Medicare cost data and multiply it by some factor ...

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Vaccination Costs

September 9, 2009 – 5:10 am by ScottSchoenvogel

http://money.cnn.com/2009/09/08/news/economy/health_care_vaccinations/index.htm There have been some interesting articles on how vaccination costs have risen to the point where group health insurance compensation is insufficient to support physician administration of vaccinations. In the individual insurance market there are even more complications - most benefit plans limit vaccination and preventive care coverage to $300 per year. This is just one more area where you will need the right expertise to make sure your physician provides critical services and if not, where can you get the best value for your money.

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Top 5 Procedure Groups for Consumer Savings

August 28, 2009 – 7:35 am by ScottSchoenvogel

Here are the top five procedure groups where a savvy consumer can sometimes cut cost by up to 80% of the market norm: 1. Heart Catheterization 2. Labor / Delivery 3. Outpatient Gastro-Intestinal Procedures (Colonoscopies / Endoscopies) 4. Advanced Imaging (MRI / CT Scan) 5. Back Surgeries

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Universal Coverage Today

August 24, 2009 – 7:30 am by ScottSchoenvogel

Occasionally you will see a healthcare expert try to make the point that universal healthcare coverage exists today. While the reality is more complicated than the statement, there is truth in the fact that life-saving care is almost always available in today's US healthcare system. When a healthcare consumer is faced with a medical emergency, it can be important to understand how the system works. There are major laws, state by state non-profit tax regulations, and numerous government support programs that make care available to those who find themselves in a difficult financial situation. The primary law is EMTALA and basically states that a hospital can not turn an emergent patient away before he or she is stabilized. If you looked at tax regulations in Texas, a not-for-profit healthcare system has to provide at least 4% of its net revenue in some form of charity or financial assistance to keep its non-profit (non-taxable) ...

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Preventive Medicine: Cost Savings Under Attack

August 19, 2009 – 7:10 am by ScottSchoenvogel

I have been surprised to see the dramatic increase in articles questioning the cost saving power of preventive medicine. See the latest article from the NY Times: http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/18/the-problem-with-prevention/ While I am not qualified to question or evaluate the validity of the points in the article, the round of questioning by many recognized experts is simply enough to emphasize the need for other ways to control costs. That is why being in control as a savvy healthcare consumer is so key to both short and long term cost management strategies.

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Outpatient vs. Inpatient

August 18, 2009 – 8:32 am by ScottSchoenvogel

Many consumers automatically think that outpatient surgery is more cost-effective than inpatient surgery. While the outcomes are generally the same and patient convenience may increase with outpatient surgery, inpatient stays are often more cost effective by a factor of 5X! The reason is that outpatient surgical reimbursements often uses an old reimbursement model that pays a relatively high percentage of charges while inpatient reimbursement is often based on a low daily fixed rate called a "per diem". The charges do not vary much between settings because most of the charge is driven by the operating room experience and not the overnight stay. If the charges are both high and nearly the same, a consumer would want to protect themselves against the high charge by choosing the low fixed rate. At the end of the day, it is up to the doctor whether you qualify for an outpatient surgery. Even if you do, you ...

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Quit Wasting My Healthcare

Costs are Rising: You need Compass!

A Great Column in “The Atlantic”

Medical Billing Nightmares

Advocacy is Just the Beginning

Increasing Focus on Cost Comparison Tools

Vaccination Costs

Top 5 Procedure Groups for Consumer Savings

Universal Coverage Today

Preventive Medicine: Cost Savings Under Attack

Outpatient vs. Inpatient

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