Alright, up front I have to say that this was not originally going to be today’s topic……..however, it was so funny and ironic that I had to share. I was texting a message today and must have started spelling the word “insurance” incorrectly, because all of a sudden the word uninsured popped up and my mind read it as “uninsurance”……..and I laughed out loud at the thought of uninsurance because that’s what most of us have! We all pay a ridiculous amount of money for “insurance” that often fails when we need it most. How often have you been forced to either discharge a patient or make them sign a self-pay waiver (Aetna…..25 visits, anyone) because of their insurance? How many patients get upset that their insurance prevents them from seeing the provider they want to see? (Medicare patients, anyone)? Ever have a patient whose insurance won’t cover an MRI until they have had a trial of physical therapy and failed all conservative treatment? How absurd that our insurance companies are often the ones preventing us from accessing the care we need. As P.T.’s and also as healthcare consumers/patients, we have to take a stand against this. This shift is happening slowly, as more patients and therapists get to the end of their rope and abandon traditional insurance based healthcare; but, we are still the minority. My current beef is with Medicare. As a P.T., I can never, ever opt-out of Medicare. Believe me, I checked into it for days to get to the bottom of this. I was actually told by Highmark, our local Medicare carrier, that as a P.T. I could opt-out, they even directed me to the form I could use. But, after running this by many other therapists, and the APTA, I found out that the […]
Read more →
