@@mathmusicreading, thank goodness for the new balance/surprise billing laws... That was seriously the stupidest thing. Even if you did your due diligence and had the list of approved ERs ready to hand EMTs, you could still get utterly ruined.
i know it's beside the point but AR means Armalite, the company that makes them. It's semi-automatic, like everything that isn't bolt-action or a revolver in modern manufacturing. I sure would love if there was like, say, some kind of registry of them, tho. Or if, perhaps, we denied sales of them to people who have committed acts of violence...but anyway an AR is cheaper than seeing the doctor, and how fucked up is that?
@@potatertot360 As an outside obersver, with those prices, it's surprising more people don't take inspiration from a certain episode of House and reenact it upon an insurance executive's office.
are you sure it's random and not some kid with leukemia? wife and mom of 3 who had a botched tubal ligation? Oh maybe they kick a granny with cataract on both eyes? Kidney infection of an amazon warehouse box mover? Firefighter with work injury, veterinarian with failed suicide injury. So many choices for them, it's never a politician and lawmaker.
@@PLODay-bk8ws Definitely do yourself a favor and avoid all stats re suicide rates amongst veterinary professionals. It's... it's not happy reading. 😔
@@angelagunn7986 Thanks for your input. I haven't heard that veterinarians have a high suicide rate (and I did presume the comment was meant to refer to Veterans, who do have). Of course I WILL look into it, but will be surprised (and intrigued) to learn that about veterinarians. (One wonders "Why??") Psychiatrists used to lead the list of suicidal professionals, with dentists a close second. (A dentist told me it's because they have to hurt people... and they work on their feet all day. Maybe modern dentistry has lightened both stressors.
Thank you! I worked in a call center for 6 weeks at an Amer. health insurance company. The trainer threatened me a few times and implied I was unhirable elsewhere. He had me meet him one on one in an empty office and asked what meds I was on. The software looked like it was from 1990, it frequently crashed. During training they made a coworker stay on a phone call with a very abusive "member" and she had to stay on the call as she cried! Then I got a call from a 5 member family, 3 children under 6, mother just lost her job and they had a $2000 deductible to pay until their daughter could get treatment for her ear infections. I was so upset and the manager said, "Don't feel sorry for them, they didn't have to choose the plan with such a high deductible, its their fault, they were greedy and dumb." Wow, there often aren't options, and to describe people that way, wow. They mad fun of the members, they ridiculed medical conditions they didn't understand or that they thought were embarrassing. When I was told that I did not fit their criteria and was let go at the end of the training, I was SO relieved. And they acted like I had just blown the opportunity of a lifetime, as if I'd just dropped out of Harvard despite a full scholarship. Inhumane in every way.
I have a family member that is not the sharpest tool in the shed, but loves to feel like she has power. She worked for an insurance company and her job was going through claims and denying them. She got off on it! She saw the members as trying to pull one over on the insurance company and took joy when she prevented them from getting medical benefits. I marveled at her ignorance and mean spiritedness and thought she was the exception. I stand corrected. We don't have much contact for obvious reasons. In another saga - I had a bunion surgery denied because the insurance company considered it routine foot care. After days of back-and-forth I finally got them to pay.
@@RH-hy7we that is exactly how I picture insurance claim employees to be like. They get satisfaction from the “power” to deny potential life-changing services. Sick
"Ooh sorry, from the training data it seems you still have a functional soul. Kindness and basic empathy don't really gel with the company culture so we'll have to decline hiring you. Just hand you temporary badge over to Mephistopheles in HR on your way out."
VETERINARY! Take the vet! As a professional American healthcare user and dog owner, I always leave the vet office thinking: I wish my healthcare was this easy and compassionate!
Really!? Had to take my two year old recently rescued cat to the Emergency vet hospital. Two days later walking out with our cat after paying $3,400. The follow up and additional cost us another cool $500. The cost of veterinary medicine is out of control. Now we’re looking at insurance for our pets. OUR PETS!! The insurance industry always knows how to get people’s money.
I got my dog spayed, with shots, a heartworm test, a microchip, ear cleaning and nail trim for $65 at a humane society clinic. i was told to keep her quiet for a couple of days, leash walks but no active play for a week. She healed up great and was chasing her ball in a week. My co worker had a husterectomy and had miserable pain and was off work for 6 weeks, and it cost her nearly 10 grand even with insurance. If I ever need anything lime that I want to be treated by a vet.
I know right? One time our cat was sick during the holidays and needed a quick vet visit. Later on the vet called us ON CHRISTMAS DAY to see how she was doing! Imagine a regular doctor doing that on any day, let alone on a holiday.
@@lauramohr9071 that's still much less than the exact same thing would have been for a human. And guess what? The veterinarian doesn't even get most of it. The reason veterinary medicine costs as much as it does is because running a veterinary clinic is very expensive. Good quality equipment is expensive, medications are expensive, the general costs of running a business are expensive. They also need to pay employees enough to meet their living expenses. So it's not that they are trying to get rich off you. It's that it's so costly just to stay in business that they have to charge that much.
As an American, American healthcare is an absolute joke. This whole skit is just the truth. Especially the last part. Great video, eye bro! Edit: This is now my most-liked comment on CZcams. Thanks, folks!
As a non-American, American healthcare is like watching a psychological horror show. Gofundme for medical treatment is quite American. US: I need a knee replacement. Surgery, medication, rehabilition and lost labor cost, and my job can sack me for "just reasons". Europe: Got appointment for knee replacement cleared. No hard labor for the next few weeks, but I might pop by for a chat. Boss, remember to file the paper so you get refunded for my absense.
I had a patient this week who's insurance company initially denied surgery for PANCREATIC CANCER! The patient knew that the insurance company knew that it would eventually have to pay, but still denied it and delayed surgery by a month as a result. This is criminal.
@@christinebutler7630 Almost certainly, that's the reason. Pancreatic cancer, you're often dead in a month. Even if they delay it, it's the same as denying it in many cases.
Every denied claim that kills a fellow citizen makes your insurance cheaper. Be grateful that companies care enough to kill their client base to save you money.
Totally agree. I remember healthcare before insurance companies were elevated to the level of “Fox watching the chicken coop.” It was a time when the doctor ordered what you needed and the insurance company paid for it. Simple and effective. We need those days back.
Full coverage for insurance executives only...and Congress! The reason insurance is so terrible is because the people in charge chose one plan for themselves and different,worse system for the rest of us!
Hey hey hey hey..... You just gotta pull yourself up by your bootstraps and buy a hospital like the rest of the billionaires, none of these handouts. Insurance is to make middle men rich, not for your socialist dreamscape of "preventative maintenance for all members of society". How would we have homeless people without medical debt and opiate addictions?
actually it's all federal employees. my late father was retired fed employee, and he had the same plan congress voted for themselves. he used to brag about it, and yes: it DID cover EVERYTHING.
The only thing you missed was talking about how you might like your medication covered..formulary, non-formulary, randomly changing formulary, 10-15 hours of your own phone time for coverage to be denied, 20+ hours of phone time for the person working on your case to go on vacation and leave no notes, there are so many wonderful pharmacy plans I can tell you about 😢
@@lisarice4402 Its unfortunate but its not doctors job to argue with insurance companies. They are there to diagnose and prescribe. The insurance companies client is the employers they ensure and indirectly the patients. If doctors were paid to do paperwork then you would have an argument but they are not, in fact wasting time on the phone with insurance companies prevents docs from taking care of other patients. Its unfortunate but I don't think docs bear the blame for late stage capitalist medical system any more than a mcdonalds worker is at fault if they don't carry schezchuan sauce
Plus all the framework and rules around substances. Things like ADHD stimulants have all sorts of rules like days between fills, cannot use any of the apps to manage refills, have to drive in and ask for a refill and then come back, refills need additional appointments and many times it cannot be virtual etc etc So we took a disorder where be organized, well scheduled, time management and follow thru are all part of the disorder and make everything they struggle with a key component in ability to get their meds. The intentions as to why all the controls are put in place makes sense in reality however it just made it way way harder to get meds to the patients that need it.
@@lijohnyoutube101 this is the exact medication I’m speaking of…you forgot national shortages…this adds countless hours of driving and calling doctors trying to track down medicine for 3 children. It’s a full time job
Veterinarian care: they rub your belly, give you free treats and don’t attribute every problem to menstruating. Oh and they also celebrate jumping on the scale even if your weight isn’t ideal.
I'm trying to help my elderly neighbor with his Medicare advantage health insurance. And all I can say, is "Lord, take me now." I seriously cannot imagine a more convoluted system. They have designed it to make people just go away it is so complicated.
The problem is the actual fact that Medicare will not cover extenuating circumstances that happened to you beyond your control (for instance, brain injury care and it’s after effects with autoimmune problems) or chiropractic (the list goes on and on). Then you have the fact if you try to take off certain parts of Medicare, you automatically lose your Social Security Disability. They should be separate, always!! It’s a hot mess trying to help yourself to get PROPER health care - I am trying to do that right now!!
My favorite line i have heard irl and people i know have heard is, "Well, just don't get sick" "Just don't need to go to the ER" literally sums up the healthcare system. The best way to be happy is just never be in an emergency. Sure, that's how all of this works, just don't plan an emergency in. It's not like emergencies ever happen without warning or little preparation, their obviously optional.
"Just don't go to the doctor for minor, preventable issues and let them get worse until they're serious and way more expensive and complicated to treat lol"
True. Eveytime I get a really bad heartburn (I mean REALLY BAD where pain radiates throughout my chest, back and arms) I really don't bother going to the ER to see if it's heartburn or something more serious because of the costs. Not only are you looking at a ridiculously high ER copay, but what if the attending decides they want to put you under observation instead of admitting to inpatient? Observation status, the insurances process differently than an inpatient and is more expensive to the patient...
Our yearly benefits meeting includes instructions to stay away from hospitals and emergency rooms unless you can't breathe. And last meeting included phrases to say to make sure what you assume is a freestanding urgent care isn't really a cleverly disguised freestanding ER.
Last time I had insurance the Dr was pretty convinced I have MS, never did get to do testing to rule out everything else so I have no clue but I am getting worse. And am now pregnant, so I'll have medicaid, maybe I can finally find out. Unless the pregnancy medicaid only covers baby related Dr visits. In which case I'll probably never know what's killing me 😅
Got gnarly food poisoning and had to go to the ER without health insurance. So that was an $8k meatball sub, and I decided to pick up some health insurance. $400 a month in premiums with an $8k deductible, which would have made it a $12,800 meatball sub. Ain't America grand?
I had to go to an ER visit because I had an allergic reaction to antibiotics at night. I checked the price before I accepted treatment and the uninsured amount was $350 for a visit. I have insurance and I was billed $550. All for the doctor to misdiagnose me and say it was throat swelling caused by viral infection and tell me to fuck off
This is such a sad skit as an American. It’s funny because it’s true. Imagine you have a heart attack and tell the ambulance to take you to your “in network” hospital. You recover and leave. Months later you receive a bill in the mail from the cardiology service. Turns out the cardiology service is owned by private equity and is out of network. Now you might be responsible for thousands of dollars. It’s a f&$ked up system.
As a veterinarian, I’d take veterinary care. A college developed a septic knee and was told itd take two weeks to get a Ct. she was miserable and asked if she could send over images of her knee from the dog hospitals Ct (it would of been cheaper any way) eventually she had to tap her own joint to make it bearable until her MD appointment.
I'm reminded of the meme that says "if society ever collapses, it's better to have a veterinarian in your group than a medical specialist. They're more used to improvising and adapting equipment, and to working in literal fields."
As a veterinarian I have fixed my own torn cruciate with herbal meds and rest, no surgery, have fixed one of my teeth, and fixed a laceration on my hand that went to the bone. My vet tech once broke a finger wrangling an unruly dog. After a visit to the walk in care and then to a bone specialist she still was walking around with an unsplinted finger! No one, apparently, had the authority to splint the finger. She gave up trying to get medical help, splinted it herself and it healed perfectly. I once pulled a fish hook out of a dog only to have the father and son return 2 hrs later to ask if I would pull a fish hook out of the son's head. LOL. Country vets beat m.d.'s any day.
This is no joke. I worked for a major insurance company. In all fairness, HR probably did the best they could at explaining our options. But every enrollment period it was like walking in a dense forest at night. I ended up sticking with the same plan for almost 20 years. The gods smiled on me, and I got lucky by never having to become sick enough to find out if I made the right choice.
I have had patients change insurance just to get a hearing aid benefit. Only to find out afterwards that that benefit secretly screwed them over not only for everything else, but in the end didn’t cover the hearing aids either And you’ve got to love Medicare. “We’ll cover the hearing test, but only one a year and if you actually want to do anything about it you’re on your own.” It’s like saying “We’ll cover the X-ray of your arm, but if you want a cast well sucks to be you”
And the whole vision/medical insurance relationship. Just to get your eye exam, you need BOTH. Each only covers certain things that don’t at all make sense. You’d think vision includes all the related things, right? Nope. That particular procedure is medical, so it isn’t covered.
This is ridiculous! Dude the government here cant afford electricity yet still just about anyone can get free healthcare. - by just showing up to a gov hospital, mind you -
@@virginiamoss7045 did you know a recent study shows that the quality of US healthcare falls below other countries healthcare quality but the US beats all of them in being the most expensive? Americans are paying way too much for mediocre healthcare
Well, yes, while the system is overall broken, many of the current problems and pricing are from folks inappropriately going to places like emergency rooms exc for very minor complaints or injuries……
@@jimyeats This is a common complaint but it's not the true source of the problem. The problem is letting companies do it for profit. For-profit healthcare is always more costly than at-cost healthcare. It's in the definition. Let's say a heart surgery cost $30 000. At-cost cost: $30 000 For-profit cost: More More - $30000 = above zero. There's no way around this calculation. The typical argument is efficiency but you can have an inefficient for-profit system as easily as an inefficient at-cost system. Look at the current cost of US healthcare (for-profit) where the average American pays DOUBLE the rate of nationalized healthcare systems to deal with the convoluted medical system that exists as described in this video. Here's an easy example - having a child. In the States, my brother works for the state of Illinois and had a child with government health coverage (like 80% or something) - it cost him ~$10 000 (out of pocket) to bring a child into the world between hospital and doctor visits and delivery. Meanwhile, my American-immigrant-to-Canada friend had a child at the same time for the cost of $40 out of pocket because they opted for the pre-natal vitamins. The rest (check-ups, delivery, ultrasounds, etc) was covered as part of the national insurance system. This is the difference. Do Canadians pay more in taxes? Absolutely, but it still doesn't add to $10 000 for the medical part as our "per person" healthcare costs are still about 50% of an American's. It's just flat cheaper to have a nationalized healthcare system.
@@MrBrock314 Not saying it isn’t. Most of the things the U.S. has done though made sense when it was initially implemented, but has spiraled out of control due to a multitude of factors. Take how the system is supposed to work in theory; most young to middle aged adults are healthy and have a reasonable income. So those folks can use a commercial insurance since they are in their working prime. For folks who are destitute or disabled we’ll have Medicaid, and for folks at a certain elderly age we’ll have Medicare. Makes reasonable sense, right? Keep taxes down and only use those for the people who really need it, while healthy working class folks can use commercial insurance. Well, if everyone did their part it would work, but no one does. Patients don’t follow instruction and then need every minor concern addressed in the most expensive way possible, commercial insurance doesn’t want to actually provide cost effective insurance and just wants massive profit, and Medicare and Medicaid pays 17 cents on every dollar billed, leading hospitals and medical facilities to up their overall charges to recoup those losses. So yeah, it’s a mess, but I wouldn’t say nationalized healthcare isn’t without significant drawbacks as well. The amount of patients we see that come here for surgeries and treatments because they’ve been waiting - years? - within their national healthcare system is quite staggering as well.
My country has subsidized healthcare (80% of the cost) We generally buy private insurance because its cheap and it covers everything. For example - Hospital plan, if you want the cheapest, you can go to a public/government hospital and it will be fully covered. ($500 a year) If you want private hospital and private rooms etc choose the most expensive option. ($1000 a year) It only gets more expensive when you are older. You can choose from 5-6 different insurance companies and select whichever benefits works for you, they are generally about the same with some additional benefits depending on the plan/company you choose We have prior authorizations, that gets approved a week or two by medical professionals. It's always shocking when i see how broken the American healthcare system is
When I started my Master of Public Health program, I thought it would help me navigate the US health system better. Instead I now know exactly how broken & cruel the system is.
That's basically how everyone in the college public health programs feels. All it does it show you how terrible our system is. Nobody come out patriotic.
I just started working in a healthcare setting and its awful how insurance always come up with requirements out of nowhere all of a sudden a patient is not able to get a medication or see a specialist.
It is like The Purge, except that The Purge doesn’t bankrupt you. I have LDID coverage. If I get seriously ill, I can Lie Down In a Ditch and die. But the insurance company generously supplies the ditch.
In my opinion the biggest problem with US healthcare is that there is no cap on the prices insurances/hospitals can charge for services, meaning they can run wild and do what they want. Who determines that checking into the ER is worth 300 dollars? That calling an ambulance should cost you anything? That getting medication while in the ER is 10 times the cost of buying it over the counter? That an overnight hospital stay under observation is worth thousands? If the government stepped in and created a cap, it would be a step in the right direction and perhaps we could even make the private healthcare system work out after all.
The one hospital in network hits hard. I really try to find a dentist, optometrist, and primary doctor according to "the list," but it's never accurate. Neither the doctors nor insurance tells me that until after it's time to pay. And they're separate companies!...Right? Please tell me I'm not trapped in the world's worst shell game.
Had that happen to us a few years back. My daughter needed her tonsils removed. We met with an ENT at our local in-network clinic. The surgery was done as an outpatient procedure at the adjacent hospital (also in-network). Come to find out, the ENT traveled to our local clinic from a private practice group about 30 miles away. And across the state line. Putting the doctor “out of network”
I've had to learn about the US healthcare as part of my health information management degree (gotta learn medical coding), and it doesn't really get any less frustrating. The whole thing ends up being more depressing as we had to learn about the specifics of the different lobbying groups and how hard it is to make any significant changes.
well, y'all can take a page from France. I see americans march for all kinds of civil liberties but never minimum wage or universal healthcare or pensions.
It won't happen. Healthcare in the States is too big a business. If a public healthcare system was implemented and prices were made more reasonable, the the healthcare industry would lose lots of profits, same as insurance providers. The system works in their favor, and it's anything but a coincidence.
11 years ago, I was deciding whether to settle in the US or Europe. A brief experience with the health insurance helped me to decide that it would not be the safest option to start a family there :-)
Very good choice. America could be a great place, but the conservative party makes absolutely sure it stays a Hell hole. What kind of "first world" country doesn't even have consistent access to clean drinking water?
If you have the option, Canada has many of the benefits of the US while being more European in terms of its healthcare so you could check that out. Close enough to the US to visit, far enough away to have more common sense. ;)
Too bad getting care from Texaco Mike wasn't an option. That'd probably be worlds better and more affordable than most anything else. This is exactly why I'm trying to learn as much I can about how to provide my own families healthcare whenever possible. Basically, my goal is to be Rural Medicine, only with better work life balance.
Wait! You forgot to add in that your relatives are responsible for paying off any medical debts you have when you die! "Oh, we failed to save Grandpa! Here's a bill for $256,734.87! But don't worry, we offer payment plans at $15,643.34 per month!"
Here's a good one. I'm in the US. I'm having to get scans done post-cancer treatment. I'm getting them done at an in-network hospital's imaging center, that has the Cancer Center where I was treated and the doc who I see for my follow-up appts. I made VERY sure all these were in-network, and I'm getting the pre-auth letters for the scans as well. So far, so good, or as good as it's going to get. I get a scolding call from my prescription drug plan provider, of all things (very puzzling - I guess CVS was begging for more scraps to squeeze more from their margins?) , about SAVING THE HEALTH PLAN MONEY by finding another imaging center with cheaper reimbursement rates. ARE YOU KIDDING ME! Freakin' renegotiate your rates with the hospital, UHfreakinC, and leave me out of it. 😡
Over the last 12+ years, at each open enrollment, I have been developing a spreadsheet that models the total out-of-pocket cost for each plan at various levels of claims, from no claims at all to tens of thousands of dollars worth, taking into consideration the premiums, coinsurance, max out of pocket, etc. For modest amounts of claims, the highest deductible plan invariably has the lowest total cost. For higher levels of claims (on the order of $15k or more), sometimes a "gold" plan ends up being slightly better, and sometimes it doesn't.😊 It's disgusting that I have to go to such lengths to make a semi-informed decision, and even then I'm only guessing at what expenses next year might bring.
@@marie-eve5165 HSA is a savings account for healthcare expenses. It gets the added perk of being a tax shelter! What's the price, you ask? Typically you have to pay about $2,000+ to meet your deductible and start getting any sort of coverage (hence the GoFundMe joke).
@@marie-eve5165HSA stands for "Health Savings Account", essentially a seperate bank account specifically for medical costs at your doctor visits and also some covered items at stores (there are lists of included items out there but some over the counter meds and feminine hygiene products are covered and can be purchased using HSA funds for example). The money to fund this account is taken out of your paycheck automatically based on what limit you set, and some companies will also contribute to it as a "benefit" of working there.
@Marie-Eve Health Savings Account. You have a separate checking account that YOU put money into and use strictly for health care costs. You will be audited by the IRS directly, so you will need to keep track of all bills and receipts. Plus, you have the most MINIMAL health coverage, if anything at all for those plans because again... you have a separate checking account for any and all expenses. I don't recommend those unless you're wealthy enough to set aside a good chunk of money into that account AND are blessed enough to have iron-clad health.
@@marie-eve5165 "HSA" stands for "Health Savings Account." The idea is to provide a dedicated account for health care related expenses that can be incentivized with company matches for contributions, granted tax exemptions, and managed like an investment account, and then you can make payments out of it for health care costs. Like any savings concept, if you only start saving when you actually need it, the cupboard is going to be obviously bare. However, if you start saving before you actually need it, HSAs are a great tool. They can be used on their own to cover things out of pocket, or can be paired with high-deductible low-premium insurance plans so your monthly premiums are low, and then you use the HSA to cover the deductible when you actually need service. The system is a giant mess, and I'm a little puzzled why we make absolutely certain that in order to graduate high school, everyone has to have sat through Hamlet and seen the quadratic formula, but don't dedicate any class time to understanding the health care system. Perhaps if we did that, there would be more actual pressure to fix the excesses of the system.
100% true. I was lucky enough to get the "insurance executive" plan and Federal Law prevents them from kicking me off, but the lobbyist are working on it. It time to remove all tax breaks on campaign donations.
Here in my area in Sweden I only have to pay about $20 for a visit to my primary care doctor. And if you have to have many appointments you don't have to pay anything at all when you hit the $120 payment roof. Then you don't have to pay anything at all for any subsequent visits under a year based on your first visit. I think US healthcare should be more like the Swedish one. Access to healthcare should not be based on what insurance you have.
Sadly very true, I have a chronic health condition and kept wondering why my siblings could afford cars, better housing, and vacations. Sat down and really added up every dollar and cent I spent on healthcare. Let’s just say in the last 6 years I could have paid off my all student loans from undergrad and grad, bought a car and had some left over. I am now on full disability with a limited income, and my only option is thousands of dollars of debt or never healing and being unable to return to work. I’ve cut every cent of non-essential spending and spend 10+ hours a week on the phone with insurance trying to understand the system and beg/ barter/ plead for anything I can do to get claims processed/ accepted. I’ve had over 600 dislocations in the last 9 months and dislocate something almost every time I stand and I’m still arguing about a wheelchair benefit. Luckily my county has a loan closet and I’ve been able to borrow one in the interim, but I have to give it back in 3 months and I honestly don’t know if I’ll have another option I can afford before then. I’m on lists for donated medical equipment at over a dozen churches. The system is so messed up. I’m 32 and have white hair coming in from the stress of managing it all.
Hi from Australia! Way back in 2009 I went to USA with family and loved the people I met. But when I collapsed in my Las Vegas hotel room after a day out in the August sun, all I was trying to say to my sisters was "dont call an ambulance!!". I assumed I would have to sell my house to pay for it! Luckily the hotel sent a lovely in house medical person to our room instead. Was only dehydrated but very grateful I escaped without an enormous bill. Sorry you guys have to deal with such unfair health system.
Your health insurance videos always make me grateful for my insurance. The one reason I haven't quit my emotionally abusive job. I rarely have anything denied and my copays are often 0. My copays are so low, in fact, my out of pocket costs in 2023 thus far have been before $2k, despite having RA, type 1 diabetes using an insulin pump and cgm, migraines on Emgality, and asthma on Dupixent. My mom, knowing how much I hate my job, has asked me why I can't just quit and get health insurance at my new job. It won't be the same. It sucks how health insurance is tied to employment.
As a former HR person, the only part that’s inaccurate is how well educated the Benefits Coordinator is about the plans offered. You don’t need a degree in a related field to go into HR, or any certification. The average HR person hasn’t studied benefits, retirement options, or in some cases, basic labor laws. It’s pathetic. Took my naive dumbass self a decade to realize how awful the field can be. We need healthcare for all, and we’ve needed it for a long time. People are dying over this garage.
That's a feature, not a bug. HR exists solely to protect the business from liability related to (gasp!) having to employ those pesky workers that produce all the goods and do all the actual labor. You don't need educated people to do that. You just need them to follow what the executives say and immediately retaliate against any and all people on the staffing level.
A company I worked for when I had a conversation with HR about whether the ADA allowed asking employees about any handicaps actually had the book "HR for Dummies" being used as a reference. I wish I was kidding. (Claimed it was OK to ask as long as no answer was required). The ADA explicitly prohibits asking. If somebody wants an accommodation then, and only then, the employer can ask details.
They seem educated because they were reading the book just then during their break, so they could sound such to the new hire. Also a former HR person, was actually my first full time job and I did the benefit enrollment even. Took it over for the department because of my love of spreadsheets.
Maybe this is why my hospital replaced the entire department with a bad website with a clunky interface. You can't even get hold of a live person anywhere to explain anything :(
My 9year old needs work done and they said our insurance doesn’t cover a pediatric dentist because she’s over 7 but the regular dentist doesn’t cover because she’s too young. I’m like WTF?!
Before I got my master's degree in English literature I graduated with honors in biology with a pre-med emphasis. After grad school I spent four years researching insurance law for a living and helped get 90 insurance titles to print every year including the first comprehensive title on HSAs. When I started researching insurance law I made a list of all of the conditions that are so expensive that I decided I would refuse care and just put my affairs in order... and told my spouse that we must have insurance that covers them all. He made sure we got it, and within six years we both were diagnosed with one of them. It took us a decade to pay the bills, but we had excellent care because we had comprehensive (what politicians then were calling "cadillac") coverage. It's as complicated as possible, but have truly comprehensive coverage or try to get it.
Do you have a link to any of the resources (books/ paywall articles included) or list is you compiled through your work? Sounds like very helpful material.
@@spontaneousun I'm sorry to say that I don't anymore, but all of those resources are too dated to be useful anyway. The important things to remember about health insurance are that (1) the "Blues" (Blue Cross/Blue Shield) never cover out-of-state care, (2) the fed will always have to replace a tax-free self-insurance tool with another kind because they always phase out the tax benefits too soon, and (3) always keep your annual out-of-pocket maximum (i.e. deductible plus copayments) at least in liquid assets if you cannot swing keeping them as cash reserves. Also, less comprehensive coverage generally has lower copays, so don't get seduced by them...that policy will drop you the moment you really need it. Also--it's never simple, health insurance--once you join the million dollar club ($1M+ paid out for your coverage) you might need to lawyer up in order to prevent your insurer from defaulting on the coverage, so you need to keep cash reserves available for that contingency.
Sign me up for the vet!! Even without pet insurance, my senior dog's cancer, subsequent amputation, and eventual end of life care cost less than any one of my minor procedures. And office visits with the vet lasted anywhere from 30 min to an hour depending on how long it took to answer my questions and decide on the best course of action. Not to mention in-house blood work, x-rays, AND dental care! They even give out treats 😋
I partly work in HR and...yep. It sucks because even if you're really good at your job and focused on helping people, there's only so much that can be done because of the state of health insurance.
Even when you have good health insurance, like I do through my parents, the universe finds a way. All I wanted was anxiety meds, and this set into motion a chain of events that ended in my car getting totaled.
Hi Doc. Most US companies don’t have an in-house person to talk to directly when making insurance decisions. It’s outsourced to the point where talking to an actual human is very difficult. Your new hire is luckier than most!!!😅
The billionaire class is so powerful in America that they're able to constantly manipulate the media and have the middle class fighting each other for culture war bullshit rather than uniting against them, their common enemy.
Retired Canadian doc, spent a few months sabbatical with Cardiology group in F--rida. Nice clinic , 4 story building in the best part of town. Realized there was one whole floor, completely devoted to BILLING. Perplexed at the time, now I know why.
The best health insurance plan is to hope you'll end up at a hospital with a good financial assistance program. (And if you are experiencing an injury make sure to drive yourself there)
I had a seizure at work, they called 911, and the ambulance took me less than three miles to the hospital. I was unconscious and could not refuse; I have documented epilepsy and don’t go to the hospital when I have a seizure unless it lasts a long time. I ended up with almost $30,000 in debt I could not pay for-yay for unpaid internships, too-and went to collections. The ambulance was half that cost.
And we haven't even gotten to the part about riders and extra coverage because your body decided to be rude and nothing is covered under normal plans 🎉 Also don't forget to review the 400 page formulary if you take any kind of medication because, wait for it, different plans cover different medications differently!!!!! (Please help me)
People facing challenges in meeting essential expenses often do so due to inadequate savings during their working years. In my family, differing investment approaches and decisions taken in readiness for retirement had extensive consequences, with varied results. Now guided by a financial advisor, I'm in my retirement phase.
Indeed, that's accurate. In my mid-50s, a shift in investments to my wife's wealth manager a couple of years ago has led to increased earnings, generating income even before retirement, and remarkable growth in my retirement fund, surpassing what my 401k alone would have achieved.
Regrettably, many lack access to such insights, leading to anxiety and significant challenges due to insufficient information. Personally, I've generated over $25k passively through investing with an advisor, appreciating the ease without exerting much effort, and skilled wealth managers consistently deliver returns despite economic fluctuations.
@@mariaguerrero08 Could you guide me on how to get in touch with your advisor? My funds are being eroded by inflation, and I'm seeking a more lucrative investment strategy to effectively utilize them.
Do your homework and choose one that has strategies to help your portfolio grow consistently and steadily. “Camille Alicia Garcia” is responsible for the success of my portfolio, and I believe she possesses the qualifications and expertise to meet your goals.
I've taken the initiative to research her online and verify her credentials. I'm impressed with her expertise, and I've reached out to her to share my financial market goals in detail.
If you have CMO, then no. If you have HSA, then you need to call your insurance agent and he’ll say no. If you have PPO, it is covered only if you pay your deductible for $420.69 plus tax and once you’ve paid your deductible then the insurance no longer covers it.😅
In the past 2 months of doing billing at an ambulance agency, I've learned how ruthless some insurance companies are and how quickly they'll deny a claim, based on that day's barometric pressure or tectonic plate position. One travesty you didn't cover is veterans' insurance: choosing between VHA & Tricare (HINT: always choose Tricare!). VHA seems great, always present since you are a veteran, but the caveat are a) it only covers EMERGENCY transports, b) you have to contact them annually with your income or else that could disqualify you for coverage. Also the veteran is supposed to contact VHA within 72 hours of the transport to say, "Hey, this happened," even if they are dying. It is disheartening when VHA won't pay for our veterans' claims, and then say, "Sorry, they should have known."
Moving to the US this was an absolute nightmare...now I just survive. My company's 100% covered health insurance is so expensive that I just went on the high deductible/HSA option and just funnel that money into the HSA (this plan is free, thankfully).
I've never been so glad to be Canadian in my entire life... My company only had one benefits/insurance plan and it had only three levels and they were all pretty clear and none were too expensive for me. PLUS we have province-wide free basic healthcare etc... I only pay pretty much either nothing or 20% on anything I DO have to pay. My head would explode if I had to try and sort through all of that D:
This hits too close to home. I lose my insurance (medicaid from the pandemic) in a week and I can't afford the insurance at work because I'm part time or the insurance on the marketplace. I'm just quietly panicking. 😭
The first doc I had as an adult was an osteopath who performed OMM - just an all around great guy and a fantastic doctor!! I miss him so much now - I know he would be an excellent help to me now, in my 50s
I feel like I really lucked out with my particular HMO, considering they cover all my transition stuff, have clinics that specialize in gender care, and my doctors are incredibly supportive and actually listen to me. Plus ER visits are only a smaller copay and I have no deductible or copay for regular visits. Uh… software engineers get spoiled 😅
*sigh* yep! I'm 23, had a traumatic brain injury when I was 17 and have multiple ER visits a year with migraines and seizures. So getting insurance is gonna be HELL when I turn 26 and am off my parents' plan.
I passed my Life, Health and Accident insurance exam earlier this year (for a company I did not end up staying with due to their dubious legality) and this is so true. I am fortunately not an insurance agent now.
I did not feel great about my work today. My boyfriend didn't either. I saw this and said "hey, do you wanna feel a little bit better about working as a doctor in Sweden?"
I fall off my parents insurance in a couple of months. I work for a clinical trials company. We don't even have this many options, we get like 3 and they all suck and on top of costing a not insignificant amount for what they pay us, the plans they decided to offer us group as much as they can under specialist so you have to pay $65-$75 a visit. Love the US healthcare system, it's great.
This skit actually hits one of the main issues on the head. It's the CRIMINAL lack of transparency by healthcare insurance companies. They need to be up front about their plans and make that information easily accessible.
If you feel overwhelmed, there's a wonderful video by youtuber Brian David Gilbert with some explanations of US healthcare terminology for complete newbies - it doesn't make the system make more sense, but at least you'll get basic confusing abbreviations
And then when you retire and you'd think things would get a bit simpler for us old fogies as our brain function declines, it gets worse with Medicare and all the choices (A, B, D, supplements, Plan N, Plan G, Advantage, different rules in each state, etc.) !!!
I'm not American, but everything I know about American health insurance comes from a Brian David Gilbert video. I recommend checking it out. It's as informative as it is entertaining.
i have a final exam for a course in health economics in a few hours, this is exactly the review i needed to make sure i know my insurance plans in and out
I had to give up my dream job (preschool teacher) to get an office job because I needed health insurance. The health insurance I have is INSANELY good for health insurance, but it’s still actually AWFUL and ridiculously expensive. This whole journey has made me jaded and I haven’t even had any major medical complications
"Only one hospital is in network but you won't know which one. You have to guess." That's eerily accurate and not much of an exaggeration.
Even more accurate: The hospital is in network, but the specific physicians and providers who gave you care aren't! Here's the full bill.
@@mathmusicreading Exactly!!!
@@mathmusicreading do you still have to pay for a room? Great question! The answer is whatever makes us the most money.
I had to like this comment just so I could get it to 666. Because what else goes better with medical insurance then "evil"?
@@mathmusicreading, thank goodness for the new balance/surprise billing laws... That was seriously the stupidest thing. Even if you did your due diligence and had the list of approved ERs ready to hand EMTs, you could still get utterly ruined.
Nice turning 26 is basically a death sentence
For type 1 diabetics, quite often not a joke.
i know it's beside the point but AR means Armalite, the company that makes them. It's semi-automatic, like everything that isn't bolt-action or a revolver in modern manufacturing. I sure would love if there was like, say, some kind of registry of them, tho. Or if, perhaps, we denied sales of them to people who have committed acts of violence...but anyway an AR is cheaper than seeing the doctor, and how fucked up is that?
@@potatertot360 No one, literally no one, gives a fuck what AR means.
@@potatertot360
As an outside obersver, with those prices, it's surprising more people don't take inspiration from a certain episode of House and reenact it upon an insurance executive's office.
@@anivicuno9473one executive can't do anything, we need to hold the whole system hostage
"The insurance company approves your claim, but a random claim from somebody else is immediately denied" :)
are you sure it's random and not some kid with leukemia? wife and mom of 3 who had a botched tubal ligation? Oh maybe they kick a granny with cataract on both eyes? Kidney infection of an amazon warehouse box mover? Firefighter with work injury, veterinarian with failed suicide injury. So many choices for them, it's never a politician and lawmaker.
@@HisameArtwork I'm sure your suicidal veteran got autocorrected to veterinarian, but those are very good points you make.
@@PLODay-bk8ws Definitely do yourself a favor and avoid all stats re suicide rates amongst veterinary professionals. It's... it's not happy reading. 😔
@@angelagunn7986 Thanks for your input. I haven't heard that veterinarians have a high suicide rate (and I did presume the comment was meant to refer to Veterans, who do have). Of course I WILL look into it, but will be surprised (and intrigued) to learn that about veterinarians. (One wonders "Why??")
Psychiatrists used to lead the list of suicidal professionals, with dentists a close second. (A dentist told me it's because they have to hurt people... and they work on their feet all day. Maybe modern dentistry has lightened both stressors.
@@angelagunn7986 Just read 2022 stats, and some explanation. Very sad, very understandable.
Thank you! I worked in a call center for 6 weeks at an Amer. health insurance company. The trainer threatened me a few times and implied I was unhirable elsewhere. He had me meet him one on one in an empty office and asked what meds I was on. The software looked like it was from 1990, it frequently crashed. During training they made a coworker stay on a phone call with a very abusive "member" and she had to stay on the call as she cried! Then I got a call from a 5 member family, 3 children under 6, mother just lost her job and they had a $2000 deductible to pay until their daughter could get treatment for her ear infections. I was so upset and the manager said, "Don't feel sorry for them, they didn't have to choose the plan with such a high deductible, its their fault, they were greedy and dumb." Wow, there often aren't options, and to describe people that way, wow. They mad fun of the members, they ridiculed medical conditions they didn't understand or that they thought were embarrassing. When I was told that I did not fit their criteria and was let go at the end of the training, I was SO relieved. And they acted like I had just blown the opportunity of a lifetime, as if I'd just dropped out of Harvard despite a full scholarship. Inhumane in every way.
LMAO 🤣
Holy cow what an experience. Thanks for sharing
I have a family member that is not the sharpest tool in the shed, but loves to feel like she has power. She worked for an insurance company and her job was going through claims and denying them. She got off on it! She saw the members as trying to pull one over on the insurance company and took joy when she prevented them from getting medical benefits. I marveled at her ignorance and mean spiritedness and thought she was the exception. I stand corrected. We don't have much contact for obvious reasons.
In another saga - I had a bunion surgery denied because the insurance company considered it routine foot care. After days of back-and-forth I finally got them to pay.
@@RH-hy7we that is exactly how I picture insurance claim employees to be like. They get satisfaction from the “power” to deny potential life-changing services. Sick
"Ooh sorry, from the training data it seems you still have a functional soul. Kindness and basic empathy don't really gel with the company culture so we'll have to decline hiring you. Just hand you temporary badge over to Mephistopheles in HR on your way out."
VETERINARY! Take the vet! As a professional American healthcare user and dog owner, I always leave the vet office thinking: I wish my healthcare was this easy and compassionate!
Really!? Had to take my two year old recently rescued cat to the Emergency vet hospital. Two days later walking out with our cat after paying $3,400. The follow up and additional cost us another cool $500. The cost of veterinary medicine is out of control. Now we’re looking at insurance for our pets. OUR PETS!! The insurance industry always knows how to get people’s money.
I got my dog spayed, with shots, a heartworm test, a microchip, ear cleaning and nail trim for $65 at a humane society clinic. i was told to keep her quiet for a couple of days, leash walks but no active play for a week. She healed up great and was chasing her ball in a week. My co worker had a husterectomy and had miserable pain and was off work for 6 weeks, and it cost her nearly 10 grand even with insurance. If I ever need anything lime that I want to be treated by a vet.
I know right? One time our cat was sick during the holidays and needed a quick vet visit. Later on the vet called us ON CHRISTMAS DAY to see how she was doing! Imagine a regular doctor doing that on any day, let alone on a holiday.
Haha, came here to say this!
@@lauramohr9071 that's still much less than the exact same thing would have been for a human. And guess what? The veterinarian doesn't even get most of it. The reason veterinary medicine costs as much as it does is because running a veterinary clinic is very expensive. Good quality equipment is expensive, medications are expensive, the general costs of running a business are expensive. They also need to pay employees enough to meet their living expenses. So it's not that they are trying to get rich off you. It's that it's so costly just to stay in business that they have to charge that much.
As an American, American healthcare is an absolute joke. This whole skit is just the truth. Especially the last part. Great video, eye bro!
Edit: This is now my most-liked comment on CZcams. Thanks, folks!
Hilarious that we spend almost twice as much per capita than the next highest country (Germany) for this mess.
As a non-American, American healthcare is like watching a psychological horror show. Gofundme for medical treatment is quite American.
US: I need a knee replacement. Surgery, medication, rehabilition and lost labor cost, and my job can sack me for "just reasons".
Europe: Got appointment for knee replacement cleared. No hard labor for the next few weeks, but I might pop by for a chat. Boss, remember to file the paper so you get refunded for my absense.
It's amazing that there are still average Americans who defend our broken system.
@@ardimento and you are less efficient with it
@@DaxCyro a few weeks of work for a knee?? its a couple of month...
I had a patient this week who's insurance company initially denied surgery for PANCREATIC CANCER! The patient knew that the insurance company knew that it would eventually have to pay, but still denied it and delayed surgery by a month as a result. This is criminal.
Because mortality rates for pancreatic cancer are high, so they didn't want to bother treating him since he would most likely die anyway.
@@christinebutler7630 Almost certainly, that's the reason. Pancreatic cancer, you're often dead in a month. Even if they delay it, it's the same as denying it in many cases.
Every denied claim that kills a fellow citizen makes your insurance cheaper. Be grateful that companies care enough to kill their client base to save you money.
@@julesmasseffectmusic ( you forgot the sarcasm font)
Totally agree. I remember healthcare before insurance companies were elevated to the level of “Fox watching the chicken coop.” It was a time when the doctor ordered what you needed and the insurance company paid for it. Simple and effective. We need those days back.
Full coverage for insurance executives only...and Congress! The reason insurance is so terrible is because the people in charge chose one plan for themselves and different,worse system for the rest of us!
✅ 💯 % 🤬
Hey hey hey hey..... You just gotta pull yourself up by your bootstraps and buy a hospital like the rest of the billionaires, none of these handouts. Insurance is to make middle men rich, not for your socialist dreamscape of "preventative maintenance for all members of society". How would we have homeless people without medical debt and opiate addictions?
...just like Congress did instead of Obamacare...
And because the voters allow it
actually it's all federal employees. my late father was retired fed employee, and he had the same plan congress voted for themselves. he used to brag about it, and yes: it DID cover EVERYTHING.
The only thing you missed was talking about how you might like your medication covered..formulary, non-formulary, randomly changing formulary, 10-15 hours of your own phone time for coverage to be denied, 20+ hours of phone time for the person working on your case to go on vacation and leave no notes, there are so many wonderful pharmacy plans I can tell you about 😢
Then you have doctors that refuse to cooperate to do their job you are not qualified to do - they leave you hanging all of the time!
@@lisarice4402 Its unfortunate but its not doctors job to argue with insurance companies. They are there to diagnose and prescribe. The insurance companies client is the employers they ensure and indirectly the patients. If doctors were paid to do paperwork then you would have an argument but they are not, in fact wasting time on the phone with insurance companies prevents docs from taking care of other patients. Its unfortunate but I don't think docs bear the blame for late stage capitalist medical system any more than a mcdonalds worker is at fault if they don't carry schezchuan sauce
Plus all the framework and rules around substances. Things like ADHD stimulants have all sorts of rules like days between fills, cannot use any of the apps to manage refills, have to drive in and ask for a refill and then come back, refills need additional appointments and many times it cannot be virtual etc etc So we took a disorder where be organized, well scheduled, time management and follow thru are all part of the disorder and make everything they struggle with a key component in ability to get their meds. The intentions as to why all the controls are put in place makes sense in reality however it just made it way way harder to get meds to the patients that need it.
@Li John - thyroid medication is treated like they are narcotics when there is no way to get high off of them - crazy regulations!!
@@lijohnyoutube101 this is the exact medication I’m speaking of…you forgot national shortages…this adds countless hours of driving and calling doctors trying to track down medicine for 3 children. It’s a full time job
Veterinarian care: they rub your belly, give you free treats and don’t attribute every problem to menstruating. Oh and they also celebrate jumping on the scale even if your weight isn’t ideal.
They're also really good at noticing symptoms you don't mention to them!
Hmmmmm I think I might be looking in the wrong direction 😂
In fact, only the lab animal/zoo med vets even HAVE patients that menstruate!
Can verify that most veterinarians do a more thorough physical than many MDs
Do I have to wait for open enrollment again before I switch to this plan?
I'm trying to help my elderly neighbor with his Medicare advantage health insurance. And all I can say, is "Lord, take me now." I seriously cannot imagine a more convoluted system. They have designed it to make people just go away it is so complicated.
They don't want us to go away. They want us to die. Then they keep getting priemums till the body in the ground
They say that you should avoid/not sign up for Medicare Advantage. It's not Medicare.
If you haven’t already, many local senior centers will help and have someone who will guide you/senior neighbor through options ❤️
The problem is the actual fact that Medicare will not cover extenuating circumstances that happened to you beyond your control (for instance, brain injury care and it’s after effects with autoimmune problems) or chiropractic (the list goes on and on). Then you have the fact if you try to take off certain parts of Medicare, you automatically lose your Social Security Disability. They should be separate, always!! It’s a hot mess trying to help yourself to get PROPER health care - I am trying to do that right now!!
I'm from Greece and here as long as you have a social security number healthcare is completely free for everyone in every public hospital
My favorite line i have heard irl and people i know have heard is, "Well, just don't get sick" "Just don't need to go to the ER" literally sums up the healthcare system. The best way to be happy is just never be in an emergency. Sure, that's how all of this works, just don't plan an emergency in. It's not like emergencies ever happen without warning or little preparation, their obviously optional.
"Just don't go to the doctor for minor, preventable issues and let them get worse until they're serious and way more expensive and complicated to treat lol"
True. Eveytime I get a really bad heartburn (I mean REALLY BAD where pain radiates throughout my chest, back and arms) I really don't bother going to the ER to see if it's heartburn or something more serious because of the costs. Not only are you looking at a ridiculously high ER copay, but what if the attending decides they want to put you under observation instead of admitting to inpatient? Observation status, the insurances process differently than an inpatient and is more expensive to the patient...
There's also the followup to that introduction: "don't get sick, and if you do die quickly". yay.
Our yearly benefits meeting includes instructions to stay away from hospitals and emergency rooms unless you can't breathe. And last meeting included phrases to say to make sure what you assume is a freestanding urgent care isn't really a cleverly disguised freestanding ER.
Last time I had insurance the Dr was pretty convinced I have MS, never did get to do testing to rule out everything else so I have no clue but I am getting worse. And am now pregnant, so I'll have medicaid, maybe I can finally find out. Unless the pregnancy medicaid only covers baby related Dr visits. In which case I'll probably never know what's killing me 😅
What I've learned from this is that you can work in healthcare in the USA, and still not be able to get decent healthcare for yourself.
I can attest to this! Our healthcare is a joke! Shameful really.
“It’s like the purge, but for 12 hours there are no prior authorizations”. Oscar worthy line there
Got gnarly food poisoning and had to go to the ER without health insurance. So that was an $8k meatball sub, and I decided to pick up some health insurance. $400 a month in premiums with an $8k deductible, which would have made it a $12,800 meatball sub. Ain't America grand?
Only if you got several hundred grands 😂😛
I had to go to an ER visit because I had an allergic reaction to antibiotics at night. I checked the price before I accepted treatment and the uninsured amount was $350 for a visit. I have insurance and I was billed $550. All for the doctor to misdiagnose me and say it was throat swelling caused by viral infection and tell me to fuck off
Subway?
@@LDrosophila Yup.
This is such a sad skit as an American. It’s funny because it’s true. Imagine you have a heart attack and tell the ambulance to take you to your “in network” hospital. You recover and leave. Months later you receive a bill in the mail from the cardiology service. Turns out the cardiology service is owned by private equity and is out of network. Now you might be responsible for thousands of dollars. It’s a f&$ked up system.
As a veterinarian, I’d take veterinary care. A college developed a septic knee and was told itd take two weeks to get a Ct. she was miserable and asked if she could send over images of her knee from the dog hospitals Ct (it would of been cheaper any way) eventually she had to tap her own joint to make it bearable until her MD appointment.
I'm reminded of the meme that says "if society ever collapses, it's better to have a veterinarian in your group than a medical specialist. They're more used to improvising and adapting equipment, and to working in literal fields."
F*ckkk.
As a veterinarian I have fixed my own torn cruciate with herbal meds and rest, no surgery, have fixed one of my teeth, and fixed a laceration on my hand that went to the bone. My vet tech once broke a finger wrangling an unruly dog. After a visit to the walk in care and then to a bone specialist she still was walking around with an unsplinted finger! No one, apparently, had the authority to splint the finger. She gave up trying to get medical help, splinted it herself and it healed perfectly. I once pulled a fish hook out of a dog only to have the father and son return 2 hrs later to ask if I would pull a fish hook out of the son's head. LOL. Country vets beat m.d.'s any day.
@@gryphonennis1002 No, you didn't fix a 'torn' cruciate ligament with herbal medication and rest.
I wish, I had to put my German Shepherd down because I didnt have the $10k for her torsion surgery.
This is no joke. I worked for a major insurance company. In all fairness, HR probably did the best they could at explaining our options. But every enrollment period it was like walking in a dense forest at night. I ended up sticking with the same plan for almost 20 years. The gods smiled on me, and I got lucky by never having to become sick enough to find out if I made the right choice.
I am honestly so grateful I don't live in the US, I have no idea what any of that means and that makes me feel happy
Be happy. Be very, very happy...
The US is a great place to have an emergency, bad place to have a chronic condition
Just make sure you pay attention & vote against any politicians that want to privatize healthcare.
Oh, neither do any of us.
@@ardimentoThat is a pretty accurate way of putting it.
I have had patients change insurance just to get a hearing aid benefit. Only to find out afterwards that that benefit secretly screwed them over not only for everything else, but in the end didn’t cover the hearing aids either
And you’ve got to love Medicare. “We’ll cover the hearing test, but only one a year and if you actually want to do anything about it you’re on your own.” It’s like saying “We’ll cover the X-ray of your arm, but if you want a cast well sucks to be you”
And the whole vision/medical insurance relationship. Just to get your eye exam, you need BOTH. Each only covers certain things that don’t at all make sense. You’d think vision includes all the related things, right? Nope. That particular procedure is medical, so it isn’t covered.
This is ridiculous! Dude the government here cant afford electricity yet still just about anyone can get free healthcare. - by just showing up to a gov hospital, mind you -
@@disguisedcat1750 What's the quality of the health care there? That matters, too.
@@virginiamoss7045 did you know a recent study shows that the quality of US healthcare falls below other countries healthcare quality but the US beats all of them in being the most expensive? Americans are paying way too much for mediocre healthcare
@@disguisedcat1750 you must be south african. If you want to die in a gov hospital, go ahead.
This is me. But with the added bonus of “you start in July but your insurance coverage doesn’t start until September.”
God the “not yet” hits hard. You have a paper cut? That’ll be $10,000.
Well, yes, while the system is overall broken, many of the current problems and pricing are from folks inappropriately going to places like emergency rooms exc for very minor complaints or injuries……
@@jimyeats This is a common complaint but it's not the true source of the problem. The problem is letting companies do it for profit. For-profit healthcare is always more costly than at-cost healthcare. It's in the definition.
Let's say a heart surgery cost $30 000.
At-cost cost: $30 000
For-profit cost: More
More - $30000 = above zero.
There's no way around this calculation. The typical argument is efficiency but you can have an inefficient for-profit system as easily as an inefficient at-cost system. Look at the current cost of US healthcare (for-profit) where the average American pays DOUBLE the rate of nationalized healthcare systems to deal with the convoluted medical system that exists as described in this video.
Here's an easy example - having a child.
In the States, my brother works for the state of Illinois and had a child with government health coverage (like 80% or something) - it cost him ~$10 000 (out of pocket) to bring a child into the world between hospital and doctor visits and delivery. Meanwhile, my American-immigrant-to-Canada friend had a child at the same time for the cost of $40 out of pocket because they opted for the pre-natal vitamins. The rest (check-ups, delivery, ultrasounds, etc) was covered as part of the national insurance system. This is the difference.
Do Canadians pay more in taxes? Absolutely, but it still doesn't add to $10 000 for the medical part as our "per person" healthcare costs are still about 50% of an American's. It's just flat cheaper to have a nationalized healthcare system.
@@MrBrock314 Not saying it isn’t.
Most of the things the U.S. has done though made sense when it was initially implemented, but has spiraled out of control due to a multitude of factors.
Take how the system is supposed to work in theory; most young to middle aged adults are healthy and have a reasonable income. So those folks can use a commercial insurance since they are in their working prime. For folks who are destitute or disabled we’ll have Medicaid, and for folks at a certain elderly age we’ll have Medicare.
Makes reasonable sense, right? Keep taxes down and only use those for the people who really need it, while healthy working class folks can use commercial insurance.
Well, if everyone did their part it would work, but no one does. Patients don’t follow instruction and then need every minor concern addressed in the most expensive way possible, commercial insurance doesn’t want to actually provide cost effective insurance and just wants massive profit, and Medicare and Medicaid pays 17 cents on every dollar billed, leading hospitals and medical facilities to up their overall charges to recoup those losses.
So yeah, it’s a mess, but I wouldn’t say nationalized healthcare isn’t without significant drawbacks as well. The amount of patients we see that come here for surgeries and treatments because they’ve been waiting - years? - within their national healthcare system is quite staggering as well.
If you aren't from the US, know that this is more accurate than you think.
The “insurance executives only” sums it up perfectly 😂😢
My country has subsidized healthcare (80% of the cost)
We generally buy private insurance because its cheap and it covers everything.
For example - Hospital plan, if you want the cheapest, you can go to a public/government hospital and it will be fully covered. ($500 a year)
If you want private hospital and private rooms etc choose the most expensive option. ($1000 a year)
It only gets more expensive when you are older.
You can choose from 5-6 different insurance companies and select whichever benefits works for you, they are generally about the same with some additional benefits depending on the plan/company you choose
We have prior authorizations, that gets approved a week or two by medical professionals.
It's always shocking when i see how broken the American healthcare system is
What country???? Are you taking people from America?
Oh you said $500 to $1000 a YEAR! My insurance is $700 per MONTH. I'm self-employed so have to buy it for myself. 😭😭🇺🇸
It's class warfare.
What country??
When I started my Master of Public Health program, I thought it would help me navigate the US health system better. Instead I now know exactly how broken & cruel the system is.
That's basically how everyone in the college public health programs feels. All it does it show you how terrible our system is. Nobody come out patriotic.
I just started working in a healthcare setting and its awful how insurance always come up with requirements out of nowhere all of a sudden a patient is not able to get a medication or see a specialist.
It is like The Purge, except that The Purge doesn’t bankrupt you.
I have LDID coverage. If I get seriously ill, I can Lie Down In a Ditch and die. But the insurance company generously supplies the ditch.
That is generous, especially for a health insurance company!
In my opinion the biggest problem with US healthcare is that there is no cap on the prices insurances/hospitals can charge for services, meaning they can run wild and do what they want. Who determines that checking into the ER is worth 300 dollars? That calling an ambulance should cost you anything? That getting medication while in the ER is 10 times the cost of buying it over the counter? That an overnight hospital stay under observation is worth thousands? If the government stepped in and created a cap, it would be a step in the right direction and perhaps we could even make the private healthcare system work out after all.
The one hospital in network hits hard. I really try to find a dentist, optometrist, and primary doctor according to "the list," but it's never accurate. Neither the doctors nor insurance tells me that until after it's time to pay. And they're separate companies!...Right? Please tell me I'm not trapped in the world's worst shell game.
Had that happen to us a few years back. My daughter needed her tonsils removed. We met with an ENT at our local in-network clinic. The surgery was done as an outpatient procedure at the adjacent hospital (also in-network).
Come to find out, the ENT traveled to our local clinic from a private practice group about 30 miles away. And across the state line. Putting the doctor “out of network”
@@tanya5322 How enragingly enlightening of them to tell you after the fact.
I've had to learn about the US healthcare as part of my health information management degree (gotta learn medical coding), and it doesn't really get any less frustrating.
The whole thing ends up being more depressing as we had to learn about the specifics of the different lobbying groups and how hard it is to make any significant changes.
What can we do to have healthcare in the USA? This is funny and relatable to literally all of us, but it really shouldn't be.
well, y'all can take a page from France.
I see americans march for all kinds of civil liberties but never minimum wage or universal healthcare or pensions.
@@HisameArtwork
I know!
We're not spicy enough! We need to be a lot more disruptive.😁
@@grmpEqweer maybe choosing the right targets would also help, for a change.
Elect Bernie
It won't happen. Healthcare in the States is too big a business. If a public healthcare system was implemented and prices were made more reasonable, the the healthcare industry would lose lots of profits, same as insurance providers. The system works in their favor, and it's anything but a coincidence.
"So I have to gamble about how sick I'll be next year? And if I'm wrong I might bankrupt myself"
'Yep! It's American as apple pie.'
11 years ago, I was deciding whether to settle in the US or Europe. A brief experience with the health insurance helped me to decide that it would not be the safest option to start a family there :-)
Yup.
Very good choice.
America could be a great place, but the conservative party makes absolutely sure it stays a Hell hole. What kind of "first world" country doesn't even have consistent access to clean drinking water?
If you have the option, Canada has many of the benefits of the US while being more European in terms of its healthcare so you could check that out. Close enough to the US to visit, far enough away to have more common sense. ;)
I don't understand why people have babies in the US, since they will be in debt before the baby is born, from medical bills.
@@dubious6718
Our birthrates are dropping.
My German health insurance provider: "We dont care who you are or what you want, here's a standard student plan, live with it..."
And it'll still cover 99% of what Americans wish they could cover. :)
Too bad getting care from Texaco Mike wasn't an option. That'd probably be worlds better and more affordable than most anything else.
This is exactly why I'm trying to learn as much I can about how to provide my own families healthcare whenever possible. Basically, my goal is to be Rural Medicine, only with better work life balance.
Wait! You forgot to add in that your relatives are responsible for paying off any medical debts you have when you die! "Oh, we failed to save Grandpa! Here's a bill for $256,734.87! But don't worry, we offer payment plans at $15,643.34 per month!"
Here's a good one. I'm in the US. I'm having to get scans done post-cancer treatment. I'm getting them done at an in-network hospital's imaging center, that has the Cancer Center where I was treated and the doc who I see for my follow-up appts. I made VERY sure all these were in-network, and I'm getting the pre-auth letters for the scans as well. So far, so good, or as good as it's going to get.
I get a scolding call from my prescription drug plan provider, of all things (very puzzling - I guess CVS was begging for more scraps to squeeze more from their margins?) , about SAVING THE HEALTH PLAN MONEY by finding another imaging center with cheaper reimbursement rates. ARE YOU KIDDING ME! Freakin' renegotiate your rates with the hospital, UHfreakinC, and leave me out of it. 😡
Over the last 12+ years, at each open enrollment, I have been developing a spreadsheet that models the total out-of-pocket cost for each plan at various levels of claims, from no claims at all to tens of thousands of dollars worth, taking into consideration the premiums, coinsurance, max out of pocket, etc. For modest amounts of claims, the highest deductible plan invariably has the lowest total cost. For higher levels of claims (on the order of $15k or more), sometimes a "gold" plan ends up being slightly better, and sometimes it doesn't.😊 It's disgusting that I have to go to such lengths to make a semi-informed decision, and even then I'm only guessing at what expenses next year might bring.
HSA plans definitely feel like they start with a GoFundMe account 😂
What is a HSA?
@@marie-eve5165 HSA is a savings account for healthcare expenses. It gets the added perk of being a tax shelter!
What's the price, you ask? Typically you have to pay about $2,000+ to meet your deductible and start getting any sort of coverage (hence the GoFundMe joke).
@@marie-eve5165HSA stands for "Health Savings Account", essentially a seperate bank account specifically for medical costs at your doctor visits and also some covered items at stores (there are lists of included items out there but some over the counter meds and feminine hygiene products are covered and can be purchased using HSA funds for example). The money to fund this account is taken out of your paycheck automatically based on what limit you set, and some companies will also contribute to it as a "benefit" of working there.
@Marie-Eve Health Savings Account. You have a separate checking account that YOU put money into and use strictly for health care costs. You will be audited by the IRS directly, so you will need to keep track of all bills and receipts. Plus, you have the most MINIMAL health coverage, if anything at all for those plans because again... you have a separate checking account for any and all expenses. I don't recommend those unless you're wealthy enough to set aside a good chunk of money into that account AND are blessed enough to have iron-clad health.
@@marie-eve5165 "HSA" stands for "Health Savings Account." The idea is to provide a dedicated account for health care related expenses that can be incentivized with company matches for contributions, granted tax exemptions, and managed like an investment account, and then you can make payments out of it for health care costs. Like any savings concept, if you only start saving when you actually need it, the cupboard is going to be obviously bare. However, if you start saving before you actually need it, HSAs are a great tool. They can be used on their own to cover things out of pocket, or can be paired with high-deductible low-premium insurance plans so your monthly premiums are low, and then you use the HSA to cover the deductible when you actually need service.
The system is a giant mess, and I'm a little puzzled why we make absolutely certain that in order to graduate high school, everyone has to have sat through Hamlet and seen the quadratic formula, but don't dedicate any class time to understanding the health care system. Perhaps if we did that, there would be more actual pressure to fix the excesses of the system.
100% true. I was lucky enough to get the "insurance executive" plan and Federal Law prevents them from kicking me off, but the lobbyist are working on it. It time to remove all tax breaks on campaign donations.
These insurance skits are equal parts hilarious and infuriating. So on point.
Love for you to do comparison of original Medicare and Medicare Advantage plans.
Don't forget the Medicare SUPPLEMENTAL plans that are different from both of those... 🙃
Nixon thought private competition would help.
Here in my area in Sweden I only have to pay about $20 for a visit to my primary care doctor. And if you have to have many appointments you don't have to pay anything at all when you hit the $120 payment roof. Then you don't have to pay anything at all for any subsequent visits under a year based on your first visit.
I think US healthcare should be more like the Swedish one.
Access to healthcare should not be based on what insurance you have.
It will never happen in the US. The insurance companies have bought the politicians.
Sadly very true, I have a chronic health condition and kept wondering why my siblings could afford cars, better housing, and vacations.
Sat down and really added up every dollar and cent I spent on healthcare. Let’s just say in the last 6 years I could have paid off my all student loans from undergrad and grad, bought a car and had some left over. I am now on full disability with a limited income, and my only option is thousands of dollars of debt or never healing and being unable to return to work.
I’ve cut every cent of non-essential spending and spend 10+ hours a week on the phone with insurance trying to understand the system and beg/ barter/ plead for anything I can do to get claims processed/ accepted. I’ve had over 600 dislocations in the last 9 months and dislocate something almost every time I stand and I’m still arguing about a wheelchair benefit. Luckily my county has a loan closet and I’ve been able to borrow one in the interim, but I have to give it back in 3 months and I honestly don’t know if I’ll have another option I can afford before then. I’m on lists for donated medical equipment at over a dozen churches. The system is so messed up.
I’m 32 and have white hair coming in from the stress of managing it all.
Hi from Australia! Way back in 2009 I went to USA with family and loved the people I met. But when I collapsed in my Las Vegas hotel room after a day out in the August sun, all I was trying to say to my sisters was "dont call an ambulance!!". I assumed I would have to sell my house to pay for it! Luckily the hotel sent a lovely in house medical person to our room instead. Was only dehydrated but very grateful I escaped without an enormous bill. Sorry you guys have to deal with such unfair health system.
You're not wrong, a hospital stay can quickly exceed the cost of a house.
Your health insurance videos always make me grateful for my insurance. The one reason I haven't quit my emotionally abusive job. I rarely have anything denied and my copays are often 0. My copays are so low, in fact, my out of pocket costs in 2023 thus far have been before $2k, despite having RA, type 1 diabetes using an insulin pump and cgm, migraines on Emgality, and asthma on Dupixent.
My mom, knowing how much I hate my job, has asked me why I can't just quit and get health insurance at my new job. It won't be the same. It sucks how health insurance is tied to employment.
As a former HR person, the only part that’s inaccurate is how well educated the Benefits Coordinator is about the plans offered.
You don’t need a degree in a related field to go into HR, or any certification. The average HR person hasn’t studied benefits, retirement options, or in some cases, basic labor laws. It’s pathetic.
Took my naive dumbass self a decade to realize how awful the field can be.
We need healthcare for all, and we’ve needed it for a long time. People are dying over this garage.
Don’t be too hard on yourself. Insurance customer service for the plan you pick doesn’t even understand the plan.
That's a feature, not a bug. HR exists solely to protect the business from liability related to (gasp!) having to employ those pesky workers that produce all the goods and do all the actual labor. You don't need educated people to do that. You just need them to follow what the executives say and immediately retaliate against any and all people on the staffing level.
A company I worked for when I had a conversation with HR about whether the ADA allowed asking employees about any handicaps actually had the book "HR for Dummies" being used as a reference. I wish I was kidding.
(Claimed it was OK to ask as long as no answer was required). The ADA explicitly prohibits asking. If somebody wants an accommodation then, and only then, the employer can ask details.
They seem educated because they were reading the book just then during their break, so they could sound such to the new hire. Also a former HR person, was actually my first full time job and I did the benefit enrollment even. Took it over for the department because of my love of spreadsheets.
Maybe this is why my hospital replaced the entire department with a bad website with a clunky interface. You can't even get hold of a live person anywhere to explain anything :(
My 9year old needs work done and they said our insurance doesn’t cover a pediatric dentist because she’s over 7 but the regular dentist doesn’t cover because she’s too young. I’m like WTF?!
Before I got my master's degree in English literature I graduated with honors in biology with a pre-med emphasis. After grad school I spent four years researching insurance law for a living and helped get 90 insurance titles to print every year including the first comprehensive title on HSAs. When I started researching insurance law I made a list of all of the conditions that are so expensive that I decided I would refuse care and just put my affairs in order... and told my spouse that we must have insurance that covers them all. He made sure we got it, and within six years we both were diagnosed with one of them. It took us a decade to pay the bills, but we had excellent care because we had comprehensive (what politicians then were calling "cadillac") coverage. It's as complicated as possible, but have truly comprehensive coverage or try to get it.
Do you have a link to any of the resources (books/ paywall articles included) or list is you compiled through your work? Sounds like very helpful material.
@@spontaneousun I'm sorry to say that I don't anymore, but all of those resources are too dated to be useful anyway. The important things to remember about health insurance are that (1) the "Blues" (Blue Cross/Blue Shield) never cover out-of-state care, (2) the fed will always have to replace a tax-free self-insurance tool with another kind because they always phase out the tax benefits too soon, and (3) always keep your annual out-of-pocket maximum (i.e. deductible plus copayments) at least in liquid assets if you cannot swing keeping them as cash reserves.
Also, less comprehensive coverage generally has lower copays, so don't get seduced by them...that policy will drop you the moment you really need it.
Also--it's never simple, health insurance--once you join the million dollar club ($1M+ paid out for your coverage) you might need to lawyer up in order to prevent your insurer from defaulting on the coverage, so you need to keep cash reserves available for that contingency.
Sounds like you researxhed and learned so much, wow! So which health insurance companies do you recommend??
As someone who used to do insurance. This is accurate 😢
Sign me up for the vet!! Even without pet insurance, my senior dog's cancer, subsequent amputation, and eventual end of life care cost less than any one of my minor procedures. And office visits with the vet lasted anywhere from 30 min to an hour depending on how long it took to answer my questions and decide on the best course of action. Not to mention in-house blood work, x-rays, AND dental care! They even give out treats 😋
I partly work in HR and...yep. It sucks because even if you're really good at your job and focused on helping people, there's only so much that can be done because of the state of health insurance.
This is terrifyingly realistic.
Even when you have good health insurance, like I do through my parents, the universe finds a way. All I wanted was anxiety meds, and this set into motion a chain of events that ended in my car getting totaled.
That- yikes. How??
That CMO plan, that got me 😅. Then the GoFundMe page, the icing on the cake 👏👏
"You can only be operated on by med students" 🤣 a very under-appreciated line!
Hi Doc. Most US companies don’t have an in-house person to talk to directly when making insurance decisions. It’s outsourced to the point where talking to an actual human is very difficult. Your new hire is luckier than most!!!😅
It is unconscionable that the richest country in the world does not have universal healthcare for its citizens.
Unconscionable? Of course, how else can those in power (money) exert control over those without?
The billionaire class is so powerful in America that they're able to constantly manipulate the media and have the middle class fighting each other for culture war bullshit rather than uniting against them, their common enemy.
But it's lawmakers do.
Some might argue that’s part of why it’s the richest country in the world - a lot of it is dirty money
I don't think the USA is the richest country in the world
Retired Canadian doc, spent a few months sabbatical with Cardiology group in F--rida. Nice clinic , 4 story building in the best part of town. Realized there was one whole floor, completely devoted to BILLING. Perplexed at the time, now I know why.
"If it made sense, it wouldn't be U.S. health care" spittin' true facts there, HR Guy
The best health insurance plan is to hope you'll end up at a hospital with a good financial assistance program.
(And if you are experiencing an injury make sure to drive yourself there)
I had a seizure at work, they called 911, and the ambulance took me less than three miles to the hospital. I was unconscious and could not refuse; I have documented epilepsy and don’t go to the hospital when I have a seizure unless it lasts a long time. I ended up with almost $30,000 in debt I could not pay for-yay for unpaid internships, too-and went to collections. The ambulance was half that cost.
And we haven't even gotten to the part about riders and extra coverage because your body decided to be rude and nothing is covered under normal plans 🎉 Also don't forget to review the 400 page formulary if you take any kind of medication because, wait for it, different plans cover different medications differently!!!!! (Please help me)
(Also, Dental and Vision not included, have fun with those plans on their own 😂)
@@momain5483Teeth, vision & hearing are luxury items.
😂I was just telling a friend how big the Cheesecake Factory menu is. Love that restaurant.
Homing in on 1 million subscribers!!! KUDOS!!!
People facing challenges in meeting essential expenses often do so due to inadequate savings during their working years. In my family, differing investment approaches and decisions taken in readiness for retirement had extensive consequences, with varied results. Now guided by a financial advisor, I'm in my retirement phase.
Indeed, that's accurate. In my mid-50s, a shift in investments to my wife's wealth manager a couple of years ago has led to increased earnings, generating income even before retirement, and remarkable growth in my retirement fund, surpassing what my 401k alone would have achieved.
Regrettably, many lack access to such insights, leading to anxiety and significant challenges due to insufficient information. Personally, I've generated over $25k passively through investing with an advisor, appreciating the ease without exerting much effort, and skilled wealth managers consistently deliver returns despite economic fluctuations.
@@mariaguerrero08 Could you guide me on how to get in touch with your advisor? My funds are being eroded by inflation, and I'm seeking a more lucrative investment strategy to effectively utilize them.
Do your homework and choose one that has strategies to help your portfolio grow consistently and steadily. “Camille Alicia Garcia” is responsible for the success of my portfolio, and I believe she possesses the qualifications and expertise to meet your goals.
I've taken the initiative to research her online and verify her credentials. I'm impressed with her expertise, and I've reached out to her to share my financial market goals in detail.
As a Brit this video has successfully scrambled my brain thoroughly. Does the insurance cover this?
Only if you had prior authorization . . . 😎
Scrambled brain is not a valid ICD 10 code, so you’re out of luck. 😂
If you have CMO, then no. If you have HSA, then you need to call your insurance agent and he’ll say no. If you have PPO, it is covered only if you pay your deductible for $420.69 plus tax and once you’ve paid your deductible then the insurance no longer covers it.😅
You're in the UK, so you're covered. Since the Tories are defunding the NHS, though, the referral may take a few months.😵💫
Yay, neoliberalism!🤮
Brain scramblies are sometimes caused by vampire hypnosis, so the diagnosis falls under the supernatural and is only covered with a special rider.
Reality is always scarier than fiction...
My friend has had his triple bypass rescheduled 4x already because of insurance errors. And yeah, it has a go fund me. Whole situation sucks.
In the past 2 months of doing billing at an ambulance agency, I've learned how ruthless some insurance companies are and how quickly they'll deny a claim, based on that day's barometric pressure or tectonic plate position.
One travesty you didn't cover is veterans' insurance: choosing between VHA & Tricare (HINT: always choose Tricare!). VHA seems great, always present since you are a veteran, but the caveat are a) it only covers EMERGENCY transports, b) you have to contact them annually with your income or else that could disqualify you for coverage. Also the veteran is supposed to contact VHA within 72 hours of the transport to say, "Hey, this happened," even if they are dying. It is disheartening when VHA won't pay for our veterans' claims, and then say, "Sorry, they should have known."
It is my job to navigate insurance so patients don't have to. This is so true it hurts.
WOW! So blessed to live in Canada!
Great skit recently about the differences.
Keep up this great work, Dr. Glauc ...
Best part: “I was just enjoying some paperwork. Breaktime’s over!”
Moving to the US this was an absolute nightmare...now I just survive. My company's 100% covered health insurance is so expensive that I just went on the high deductible/HSA option and just funnel that money into the HSA (this plan is free, thankfully).
As a neurologist, I wholeheartedly support choosing the brain too!
This literally had me laughing out loud! I have open enrollment for health insurance this week so this was perfect timing!
I've never been so glad to be Canadian in my entire life... My company only had one benefits/insurance plan and it had only three levels and they were all pretty clear and none were too expensive for me. PLUS we have province-wide free basic healthcare etc... I only pay pretty much either nothing or 20% on anything I DO have to pay.
My head would explode if I had to try and sort through all of that D:
This hits too close to home. I lose my insurance (medicaid from the pandemic) in a week and I can't afford the insurance at work because I'm part time or the insurance on the marketplace. I'm just quietly panicking. 😭
the chiropractor dig got me 🤣🤣🤣 doctors and chiropractors. my mom is a DO who learned OMM
this video is the epitome of sad
The first doc I had as an adult was an osteopath who performed OMM - just an all around great guy and a fantastic doctor!! I miss him so much now - I know he would be an excellent help to me now, in my 50s
Old man’s war from all the law suits between the ACA and the AMA.
I’m a chiro working in a hospital setting. No beef as long as you arnt a quack.
I feel like I really lucked out with my particular HMO, considering they cover all my transition stuff, have clinics that specialize in gender care, and my doctors are incredibly supportive and actually listen to me. Plus ER visits are only a smaller copay and I have no deductible or copay for regular visits. Uh… software engineers get spoiled 😅
I work in a mental health practice and just showed this to our biller. She nearly fell off her chair laughing
Oatmeal Raisin!? That’s too harsh.
damn the new med student had a radical career change
As someone who works in insurance, this video has me laughing even as I Google "how to tie a noose".
*sigh* yep! I'm 23, had a traumatic brain injury when I was 17 and have multiple ER visits a year with migraines and seizures. So getting insurance is gonna be HELL when I turn 26 and am off my parents' plan.
I passed my Life, Health and Accident insurance exam earlier this year (for a company I did not end up staying with due to their dubious legality) and this is so true. I am fortunately not an insurance agent now.
Thanks for tossin in the Guinea worm reference! I immediately had a bit of hope just reflecting about how kind jimmy carter was. Keep up the good work
I did not feel great about my work today. My boyfriend didn't either. I saw this and said "hey, do you wanna feel a little bit better about working as a doctor in Sweden?"
Thanks for reminind me to be happy to live in a western European country with a really good health care system
Working for a year in the US. I had to choose an insurance plan. Still don't understand what I chose :O
I fall off my parents insurance in a couple of months. I work for a clinical trials company. We don't even have this many options, we get like 3 and they all suck and on top of costing a not insignificant amount for what they pay us, the plans they decided to offer us group as much as they can under specialist so you have to pay $65-$75 a visit. Love the US healthcare system, it's great.
"Only one Hospital is 'in-network', but you won't know which one. You have to guess!" 😆🤣
This skit actually hits one of the main issues on the head. It's the CRIMINAL lack of transparency by healthcare insurance companies. They need to be up front about their plans and make that information easily accessible.
If they did that then there’d be actual competition and they would make far less profit. Can’t have that.
"not yet" 😆
If you feel overwhelmed, there's a wonderful video by youtuber Brian David Gilbert with some explanations of US healthcare terminology for complete newbies - it doesn't make the system make more sense, but at least you'll get basic confusing abbreviations
DAMN! Dr. G is out here making POINTS!!
And then when you retire and you'd think things would get a bit simpler for us old fogies as our brain function declines, it gets worse with Medicare and all the choices (A, B, D, supplements, Plan N, Plan G, Advantage, different rules in each state, etc.) !!!
I'm not American, but everything I know about American health insurance comes from a Brian David Gilbert video. I recommend checking it out. It's as informative as it is entertaining.
Here's the link! czcams.com/video/-wpHszfnJns/video.html
i have a final exam for a course in health economics in a few hours, this is exactly the review i needed to make sure i know my insurance plans in and out
I had to give up my dream job (preschool teacher) to get an office job because I needed health insurance. The health insurance I have is INSANELY good for health insurance, but it’s still actually AWFUL and ridiculously expensive. This whole journey has made me jaded and I haven’t even had any major medical complications
"It's like the Purge, but for 12 hours there are no prior authorizations"
Somehow that seems better than our current system😭