Introduction

[TexasHusker]

I want to thank James for adding this sub forum. Health care comprises a significant amount of most of our budgets. It is not uncommon for health care costs to eat up 20 to 30 percent of a family's monthly budget when you add everything up. Premiums, copays, deductibles, non-covered services, prescriptions, etc.

Twenty years ago, there generally was a small copay for most medical care. I remember when my doctor's office copay was $10. Prescriptions were $5 for name brand, $1 for generic. My how times have changed!

For those of you with high deductibles, there are definitely some strategies that you can employ to keep your costs down. Additionally, you may find that there are services - maternity, etc. - that might not be considered a covered benefit. There are plenty of money-savings strategies there, too, with NO compromise in care!

In the coming weeks, I am going to be posting many strategies that I personally have employed, as well as a lot of insider information about the healthcare industry that could help you save big. I was in healthcare - managed care contracting, finance, business development, and physician recruitment - for 24 years.

Looking forward to some good exchange on here!

[Fishindude77]

Question - Are you self insured on a private plan?
If so, share a little info on it please.

[TexasHusker]

WOULD YOU PAY $.10 A DAY TO STOP YOUR HAIR LOSS?

Good news! Propecia is PROVEN to stop hair loss. I speak from personal experience on this. When I was in my early 20s, I began rapidly losing my hair due to male pattern baldness. I spent a fortune on hair transplants because I was so self-conscious about it.

Ten years later, on my second trip for transplants, my surgeon said "you know, if you don't start taking propecia, you're going to have to keep coming back in here because you are going to keep losing your hair." He wrote me a prescription, and from then on I paid around $75 a month to keep my hair. It worked.

As it turns out, Propecia is a 20% dose of "Proscar", a drug prescribed for your enlarged prostate. So...if you can get your doctor to prescribe "Proscar", you simply cut the pill into 5 pieces and you've saved a bunch of money!

And now, there is even a generic for Proscar - it's called Finasteride, and it's really cheap. You can spend $10-20 a month for Finasteride 1mg for your hair loss, or have your doctor prescribe you Finasteride 5 mg for about the same price, and chop the pills into 5 pieces.

If cut into 5 pieces, Finasteride 5 mg will last you 150 days. So your cost to stop your balding is about $.10 a day.

My personal experience is that the drug doesn't regrow hair where you are bald; it simply arrested further loss. I'm 51 and I've still got a lot of hair, but by the time I started taking Finasteride, a lot of damage had been done.

Happy Hair Growing and Saving!

Disclaimer: Consult with your doctor about Finasteride, its efficacy, and potential side effects. I had none.

[disneysteve]

Great idea. As we've talked about in various other threads, there are definitely ways to reduce healthcare costs no matter what type of insurance you have. In fact, I just encountered one last night. I'll start a new thread about it.

[disneysteve]

WOULD YOU PAY $.10 A DAY TO STOP YOUR HAIR LOSS?

Since there is now a dedicated forum for healthcare discussions, let's use it. I don't think posting this info in the "Introduction" thread is the best way to go. I'd suggest if you have a new topic or tip, give it its own thread so that it gets the most exposure.

[TexasHusker]

Question - Are you self insured on a private plan?
If so, share a little info on it please.

I purchase a plan called Christian Medi-Share. It costs about $560 a month for a family of four. It is not an Obamacare plan, and because it is considered a religious-affiliated plan, it is exempt for ACA requirements.

We love it, but there are a few caveats:

1. There is a waiting period for pre-existing conditions. More of a phase-in period.

2. You don't have prescription coverage.

3 Instead of a deductible and coinsurances, you have a "family household portion". You select this amount when you enroll. Once this portion is paid each year, the plan pays for all covered expenses. My AHP is $5000.

This plan works very well for us. It was a $1500 a month savings from Obamacare.

[TexasHusker]

Since there is now a dedicated forum for healthcare discussions, let's use it. I don't think posting this info in the "Introduction" thread is the best way to go. I'd suggest if you have a new topic or tip, give it its own thread so that it gets the most exposure.

Good idea.

[scfr]

Thank you. Very helpful info given that, for many of us, health care is one of the highest budget categories over which we have some control.

[maminasahu47]

Thank you it is very helpful for everyone for their health

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Health insurance is insanely expensive. I think socialized is the way to go, and obamacare was originally a republican idea to make people "take Personal responsibility" for their health. It hasn't shaken out the way republicans thought in the 90s. But now they hate it when it was their rebuttal to Hillarycare in 90s. Everyone still talks about the cost of socialized government run plan. But the truth is that with what we spend, government spends now it's probably cheaper to do socialized than what we have.

And big case and point if socialized was so awful. let's do away with medicare. The biggest socialized medical insurance program out there period. We already have socialized medicine in the form of medicare.