Have you ever had a run-in with the health care system and ended up feeling powerless because you didn't know how to make wise health care choices? Were you ever so pissed off at your health insurer that your inner voice told you "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore"? Have you ever racked up huge medical bills? That's the health care trifecta-powerless, pissed off, and paying through the nose. This book is about how to win the health care trifecta-by making the health care system work for you. Let me illustrate how this can happen by telling you a story. One morning when I was in my mid-40s, I was driving to work at 70 mph in the high speed lane of a Southern California freeway, surrounded by dozens of cars barreling along at the same speed. I suddenly felt like there was an elephant sitting on my chest. I couldn't breathe. I started sweating. I thought, "It can't be a heart attack, I'm too young." I was terrified that I was going to lose consciousness. As I started to move across four freeway lanes to get to the shoulder, I was convinced that not only was I going to die, but I was likely to crash into and kill 12 other people as I lost consciousness. It turned out I wasn't having a heart attack; I was having a panic attack, something I had never heard of until then. I was insured with a health maintenance organization (HMO) at the time, so it took three weeks to get my primary care doctor to approve a referral to see a psychiatrist, which I knew I desperately needed (since my dad was a psychiatrist). I made an appointment to see a shrink that a friend recommended, but who was not part of my HMO, and paid for the visit out-of-pocket. My insurance company didn't want to reimburse me, so I had to fight with them so they would pay me back. And I won. That determination to make the health care system work for me, instead of against me, is a characteristic of the empowered patient. Now, more than ever, we all need to be informed, empowered health care consumers. You've already shown that you're on your way to being an empowered patient-you've picked up this book. I'm going to show you, step-by-step, how to make our broken health care system work for you, too. If your primary care physician dismisses your concerns and runs out the door almost as soon as she comes in; if your health insurance plan doesn't meet your needs; if your insurer has denied you care and you want to fight back-these are all indications that you need to learn your way around our broken health care system so you can get the health care you deserve. This book will show you how.
About the Author: Jane Neff Rollins is dedicated to helping her readers learn how to make the health care system work for them. She shares the things she has learned the hard way, so you don't have to. She makes complex ideas easy to understand. Jane Neff Rollins received a Master of Science in Public Health degree from the Department of Epidemiology, UCLA School of Public Health, where she was the recipient of a National Cancer Institute fellowship. Jane was an epidemiologist with a large urban health department from for seven years, when she shifted to a career as a scientific medical writer in industry. She is currently a freelance medical writer, and has worked with such clients as Amgen, GSK, and Medscape. Her primary interests include infectious diseases, cancer, diabetes, eye diseases, women's health, and doctor-patient communication. She earned an Advanced Certificate from the American Medical Writers Association and has taught workshops about epidemiology and statistics at the AMWA annual conference since 2005. As a medical writing work has appeared in publications such as Cosmetic Dermatology, Survey of Ophthalmology, Ophthalmology Management, the Los Angeles Times, the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, Reed magazine, and in medical journals and trade magazines. Jane was also a Co-Host for KPCC's listener-led, news-driven community, The Freeway, now defunct. She also blogs periodically at Get the Health Care You Deserve. Perhaps more important than her academic credentials and writing experience are her personal experiences as a patient and an advocate for the health of family members. -As a health care consumer, she has forced her insurance company to pay for benefits that it at first denied -When faced with an insurer that wouldn't pay for part of her daughter's eye operation, she negotiated a payment plan with the surgeon -Her training and experience as a researcher in public health have given her an understanding of the health care system and how it works (or doesn't) -She has taught skill-building workshops about how to become empowered health care consumers since 2007