Portland, Oregon

Portland, Oregon

Sunday, March 6, 2016

Frugal Healthcare

There are many blogs today about living frugally.  Do you ever hear anyone talk about spending healthcare dollars frugally?  Not a word.

At our house we have excellent health insurance and almost never have any healthcare expense.  It worries me when that happens to people because I'm of the old school that people don't value what costs them nothing.  Perhaps I am the exception.  I cringe at all the waste I see everytime I'm in a clinic or the hospital.

How about Medicare?  Spend those Medicare dollars you say.  Not me.  I have a chronic condition that lands me in an Urgent Care Clinic about every three to four months.  I don't know what that costs but I figured there had to be a cheaper way.  I set about to come up with a plan.

Why did Medicare and my insurance company need the expense of me visiting an Urgent Care Clinic when I knew, my doctor knew, and the Urgent Care Clinic knew what the problem was.  All I needed was a prescription.

I decided to approach my doctor about allowing me to keep on hand the prescription I needed, give me a limited number of refills and cut out the expense of the Urgent Care Clinic.  He agreed.

Have you noticed how wasteful hospitals and emergency rooms in particular are with supplies?

An elderly family member was recently prescribed a back brace that was terribly expensive.  She will never wear it.  It was a waste of Medicare dollars.  The doctor should have been smarter.

No wonder healthcare expense is out of control but if you said the word frugal in the same sentence with healthcare people would go all Sarah Palin on you.  Frugal doesn't mean cutting quality, it means cutting waste.

Let's hear it for frugal healthcare dollars!

3 comments:

  1. I wonder why she doesn't use the back brace. Yes, there is some waste. And yes, I wish there was a way to regulate it more carefully.

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  2. You make some good points, Linda. While I'm sure this happens, I really haven't seen it in my experiences. But then I am with a not-for-profit medical provider.

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  3. I am enjoying a financial agreement with my hospital so there is no waste. It is financially great but sometimes I barely get what I need.

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