A lot of companies are adding healthcare advocates to the list of benefits for employees. A health advocate offers you personalized guidance to get through the healthcare maze. Say goodbye to the red tape and stress!
Advocates support and promote the rights of the patient in the health care arena, help build capacity to improve community health and enhance health policy initiatives focused on available, safe and quality care. (wiki)
If you haven’t used a health advocate before, they really are great (in my experience). They offer one-on-one guidance anytime you have a healthcare or insurance question or issue. The person on the other end of the phone is often a past or current nurse, medical director, or insurance expert.
But people don’t use them nearly as much as they should. Healthcare is complex… but it doesn’t have to be if you have this benefit!
10 Reasons to Call Your Health Advocate
- Find the best doctors, hospitals, dentists, and other providers who are in your plan’s network. Plans can have lists of hundreds of doctors, why not get some help to filter through them all?
- Schedule appointments. Even for hard to reach specialists and critical care providers. You can arrange for specialized treatments and tests. This could save you hours on end.
- Resolve insurance claims and negotiate billing and other administrative issues. Your advocate understands the system better and may have better negotiating skills than you.
- Assist with eldercare for your parents and parent-in-laws. This can be a very stressful and time demanding subject, so any assistance helps.
- Obtain unbiased health information. The healthcare industry is flooded with biased information. Even your doctors are swayed by the drug companies and the insurance companies. However, the advocate works for you.
- Work with insurance companies to get approvals for necessary services. If you need a procedure, instead of wasting weeks, and maybe months, trying to get an approval – use the advocate!
- Answer questions about test results, treatments, and medications prescribed by your doctor. Some doctors are better at explaining results than others. If you have any questions that your doctor isn’t answering to your satisfaction, you should be able to get answers from your advocate.
- Assist in the transfer of medical records, x-rays, and lab results. Relocations happen. And instead of using valuable time trying to transfer records, have your advocate set everything up for you.
- Locate and research the newest treatments for a medical condition. If you are beyond a certain level of care and want to try new treatments, ask your advocate for more info.
- Arrange for home care equipment upon hospital discharge. The last thing you want to worry about after a hospital stay is trying to figure out what you need for your home care. Luckily, you don’t have to.
Check Your Benefits!
If you aren’t sure if you have access to a health advocate, contact your HR representative. They may refer to them as “personal advocates” instead since healthcare advocates are sometimes looked at as advocates for a community or organization.
Has anyone used an advocate before? Did you have success? Or were they not that helpful?
I'm MLR. After graduating from college debt free, I decided to write a blog encouraging people to adapt responsible and sensible personal finance rules.
November 10th, 2009 at 9:33 am |
Having dealt with my wife’s variety of health issues over the past couple of years, and over 250k in medical bills, I wish we had a health advocate in our corner at the time. I’m not sure if we even have one through our insurer -but it’s worth a check. When you’re going through medical issues the last thing you want to have to think about is all the details about scheduling, medications, finding a good doctor, etc – but you really have to be your own advocate otherwise your care will suffer. Having an additional person in your corner would be great I think.
Peter´s last blog ..$6500 Homebuyer Tax Credit For Current Homeowners Signed Into Law Today. Is It Retroactive?
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MyLifeROI Reply:
November 13th, 2009 at 5:03 pm |
@Peter,
I would definitely give a call. I’m not sure if my health advocate is through my insurer (that seems like there would be conflicts of interest) or through my employer (seems more kosher).
You hit the nail on the head re: “be your own advocate.” That’s the best advice you could really give.
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November 10th, 2009 at 11:58 am |
Woosh… this industry is way to complicated for this guy. The day we need a personal/professional advocate for something as foundational as our health is the day that wisdom and simplicity need be besought and embraced afresh… if they will even have us again.
That said, this is the reality of our somewhat dire situation… so I appreciate the thoughtful write up, I had never even heard of such a thing!
Matt Jabs´s last blog ..Pay Off Debt – The Hybrid Debt Snowball Fight
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MyLifeROI Reply:
November 13th, 2009 at 5:04 pm |
@Matt Jabs,
Lol, sad how complicated our system has made living, right?
But as you allude to, if we are stuck in this situation we might as well use what we have in our corner.
Maybe one day we won’t even need an advocate! Idealism!
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November 30th, 2009 at 11:35 am |
I’ll second Matt’s comments; it’s horrible that something as important and basic as health has gotten so complex that we need special health advocates to help us understand it all, but it’s good that they are available to some of us, at least. I’ll raise a glass to the hopes of a health care system that’s easy to understand, provides all needed coverage, and is as inexpensive as possible. Hopefully, it’ll become a reality soon.
Roger´s last blog ..Carnival of Twenty-Something Finances: Evil Clown Edition
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