I was enjoying an exciting game of girls select soccer one chilly Saturday morning when my daughter and another player were fighting for the ball. In the blink of an eye, my daughter with a horrible look on her face hit the ground while gripping her ankle. I sat there waiting for her to stand and return to play but when she tried to put pressure on that ankle, it was obvious that something was wrong. She had to be carried off the field. The ankle began swelling immediately and it was quite bruised. We iced it, elevated it and wrapped it with a tight bandage but she was still unable to bear weight.
After a few days to see if things would normalize, my daughter continued to limp and the swelling had not resolved much at all. Ok, at this point I had to bite the bullet and take her to get it X-rayed. Blessedly, no fracture was seen. However, it took several weeks before my daughter was able to walk normally again. Now, the decision to x-ray my daughter’s ankle was easy for me because we had decent health insurance. But what about the thousands of individuals for which that is not true?
Prior to ACA implementation, the state of Missouri had roughly 800,000 people who were uninsured. Many of these individuals without health insurance relied on emergency room care for issues as simple as a common cold to the more serious conditions like stroke and heart attacks, resulting in thousands of dollars of medical expenses. In addition, relying on sporadic health care and not receiving recommended preventive services results in poor outcomes that could have potentially been avoided.
Though there continues to be some challenges with ACA such as not all providers take Obamacare and the deductibles for some families are still too high, the benefits of health insurance cannot be stressed enough. Obamacare was an attempt to transition away from episodic care to true preventive care and in my opinion, over time, Obamacare could eventually develop into what most caring providers desire: true universal healthcare.
November 1, 2015 was the first day of open enrollment for the 2016 season and runs through January 31, 2016. Families, individuals, people who are self-employed and anyone whose job does not offer health insurance can use the Health Insurance Marketplace to find the plan that is best for them.
So if you are new to having health insurance, once you sign up, what should you expect? First step, find a provider. Ask your friends who they see and if they would recommend this provider to you. Family physicians or internists are providers who can take care of adults. Family doctors however can also see children. I would also recommend looking your potential doctor up online to see if they have written any articles or have ever been featured in local papers. You can often learn a lot about them that way.
Next step, schedule a new patient visit. Your new provider may send a “new patient packet” to your home. Please fill out as completely as possible because having done so will expedite your visit. Be as thorough as possible with the family history section. This is not the time for you and your family to be secretive about your health issues. Many diseases tend to run in families such as hypertension, diabetes, and certain cancers such as breast and prostate.
At that first visit, your new doctor will review your health information and determine what preventive services are required for someone in your age bracket. For example, if you are 50, he/she will recommend a colonoscopy, an endoscopic view of the inside of your colon. This procedure which is recommended every 10 years looks for polyps and removes them if present, reducing your risk of colon cancer.
Health insurance also covers expensive imaging studies when needed. I recall an instance when a nice gentleman established care with me and during his first visit he tells me that he had been coughing for over a month. He had previously been treated with antibiotics but was not getting better. I decided to order a chest CT scan, an x-ray which shows greater detail of the lungs as compared to a regular x-ray. The patient was found to have an infection in his chest called an empyema. He eventually needed to be admitted and had to undergo surgery to have a tube placed in his chest to drain the fluid. Without health insurance, the total cost of his care could have easily been about $30,000 or more.
Therefore, don’t delay. Sign up for health insurance today. There are too many other things in life to worry about and potential medical costs as a result of an emergency room visit should not be one of them.
Yours in Service,
Denise Hooks-Anderson, M.D.
Assistant Professor
SLUCare Family Medicine
yourhealthmatters@stlamerican.com
