All posts by Debbie Sears

National Women’s Health Week

National Women’s Health Week is a week-long health observance coordinated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office on Women’s Health.  It brings together communities, businesses, government, health organizations, and other groups in an effort to promote women’s health and its importance. It also empowers women to make their health a priority and encourages them to take the following five steps to improve their physical and mental health and lower their risks of certain diseases:
  1. Visit a health care professional to receive regular checkups and preventive screenings.
  2. Get active.
  3. Eat healthy.
  4. Pay attention to mental health, including getting enough sleep and managing stress.
  5. Avoid unhealthy behaviors, such as smoking, not wearing a seatbelt or bicycle helmet, and texting while driving.

Travelers Should Share ID Cards

It feels like spring is here, graduations, memorial day weekend, lots of outside activities are always fun, and sometimes it takes us away from our home state.

As you travel, be sure that you share each other’s ID card. If there were a medical emergency, the patient may not be able to speak with an admission’s person, whether that be at a hospital, urgent care, or other type of medical treatment facility and it would be nice if your travel companion had this shared information.

Another reason to really take a look at this link is to know how to use your insurance to the best of your advantage when outside of your home area. Most of our home care is done by scheduled appointments. We know our providers, our facilities and we know how our “in-network” benefits work. But, away from our home environment, they could work differently. Please know how to use your Blue Card.

This would also cover you outside the United States, as you will see at the bottom of the page.

Wellmark Increases Individual Rates

When it was announced that Wellmark gained approval by the State of Iowa’s insurance department to increase the individual rates, panic set in; however, most people never heard the rest of the story.

This rate increase only affected a small percentage of folks in the individual market. So, the question becomes, what drives the increases in our premiums. I came across an article called, “Key factors affecting rising health care costs”, and there are four factors mentioned and outlined. Thought you might find this to be beneficial.

The Myth of Cost-Free Medicaid Expansion

Please understand the whole story when you make decisions on which way to lean. The part that caught my attention was that we have not yet addressed teaching and setting expectations for people to be healthier. In a nutshell, if you do not care about yourself…can anyone else? What does it cost to do no maintenance opposed to regular maintenance? And in the end, your health becomes not a political conversation or a dollars conversation, but the quality of life you choose to live. We have control over approximately 90% of our health. Understanding that genetics play a huge role, what we eat and the physical exertions that we choose are strictly up to us. It’s all about choices. If you are in an environmental situation that’s not comfortable, physically or mentally, leave!

There is no free lunch!

Buried in the Affordable Health Care Reform Act, are many taxes that the majority of us would have to admit, that we do not know about or thoroughly understand. One in particular that affects us every time we go to a cash register is a medical excise tax on retail receipts. Cabela’s, a popular sporting goods store, has elected to make this a line item on their cash register receipts, drawing attention to the amount of money that is being taken and applied toward our new health care reform. Here is the full story.

AskBlue Healthcare Reform

I have come across an awesome tool that can be used whether you are seeking information as an individual or as a business owner. What I liked about this “book/video” interactive tool, is that rather than to have to listen to the entire presentation and feel that only a sliver of it pertained to you, you can click to the items that interest you without confusing yourself with items that don’t pertain to you or your business.

We are here to help. We have a lot of tools, but only want to offer you the ones that best fit your needs, so we’ll leave it to you to pick and choose what you feel you need to know about. Feel free to contact me as each of us have very unique situations and we need to custom-tailor our benefits to fit our needs, our wants and our budgets.

Health Reform Hits Main Street

Through two very reliable sources of information, Wellmark, Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Iowa and the Kaiser Family Foundation, they have offered a video “Health Reform Hits Main Street”, that I feel as a seasoned agent of 34 years in the industry, gives all of us a better idea of the concepts of health care reform. If we can wrap our minds around the concept of the entire idea, possibly year by year, piece by piece, it will make better sense to us going forward.

Easy to Understand Summation of Healthcare Reform

The Healthcare Reform is a deep subject and don’t feel bad if you don’t get it completely. Remember the night that it passed and the statement made was something like…we don’t know what we passed, but we passed it? Well much to everyone’s dismay, nothing in it talks about health; rather it is a huge taxation legislation geared to make everyone “equal”. It is hard for me to get my mind around the concept that 110% effort and no effort should yield you the same result, but if you watch this quick video called “Setting the Table” it will better help you to understand the general concept of the near 1000 pages of “rules”.
Next week I will have another very informative piece of the puzzle for you to digest.
Our job is to make you compliant and in the same regard protect your budget – you and every employee. We are 40 years in the business and feel that we can be of good counsel to you.  Please give us a call.

Dr. Dean Ornish

With heart disease being at the top of our national list of health concerns, Dr. Dean Ornish has amazing programs that have been approved by the United States Government regarding prevention. The idea is that we address the cause and treat this problem as a preventative rather than an after the fact with repeated, maybe successful, maybe not, opening of your chests. Please enjoy all that Ornish has to provide you. We’ve tried it at your house.


US Manages Disease, Not Health

In watching one of my favorite shows, CNN, last night, Dr. Andrew Weil, gave us his take on how to fix health care. He has been noted as an authority on holistic health for decades, so consequently, he holds my attention. And his take on health care in the United States is that we manage the disease, not our health.

Please enjoy his 3 short clips regarding our most important asset – our health.

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