Great video on HSAs

How to spend your healthcare dollars the way you want to.

An HSA (Healthcare Savings Account) is a proactive approach for future planning and a great way to retain decision-making power when it comes to your health.

An HSA is an alternative method of savings from traditional healthcare plans. With an HSA, an individual or employer must take part in a high deductible, low premium plan, but the money saved can be deposited (PRETAXES) from your income and used for retirement, prescriptions, several types of alternative treatments or health expenses later down the road.

This article spells out the basics and benefits of HSAs (please note, this article was written with employers in mind).

http://hrconsultinggroup.com/Health-Savings-Accounts.html

The benefits of an HSA are that the deposited funds are ours to keep, they allow premium savings on high deductible plans and will modify our behavior and slow the spiraling cost of care. Money in a health care savings account can also be used for many things that some group or individual policies wouldn’t pay for such as alternative treatments, lasik, chiropractic and more.

How does an HSA modify our behavior?  Consider this example. I give you my credit card and tell you to buy yourself a big screen. What do you do?  You would buy the most expensive TV in the shop, because its not your credit card.  What if I give you 3K and tell you to buy a big screen?  You will probably shop around and buy just what you need.  Then you can pocket the savings because it is your $3,000 to keep - no matter your purchase. 

This article goes a bit more in depth about HSAs and why they make sense: http://www.hrconsultinggroup.com/articles/Why%20HSAs%20Make%20Sense.php

Taking out an HSA does require more leg work upfront to make sure that your plan is making the most fiscal sense for you.  But knowledge is power.  Talk to a broker and explore this option. Or shoot me an email and we can chat more about HSAs and other creative insurance solutions.

Take care. Be well.

Dave

Shop out your mammogram?

It may sound strange, and maybe a little more than uncouth. But, what if you could price out your medical services?  Physician expertise aside, would you feel better knowing what the going rate for most common procedures before your next appointment?

This website allows people to get free reports on common medical procedures. http://www.newchoicehealth.com/

Take the time to ask why there is such a discrepancy in price for the same service.  Is the quality different?  How would you feel about "shopping" for a knee replacement?  What about open heart surgery?

I'd love to hear your thoughts on how a service like this could be useful to you.  Or, is the idea of pricing out common procedures going too far?

Take care. Be well.

Dave

Creative alternatives to keep your costs low...

With average healthcare costs up 9% and inflation barely past 0%, its clear that something needs to be done.  While reform is the hot topic of the day, what can be done to save money while we wait for congress to reach consensus and  for those policies take effect?  This article discusses 10 ways to save money.  Take a look and see if any of these tips could work for you.

How do we stack up?

We often hear how good, or bad the health care systems work in other countries.   Here is a brief synopsis of  a few of healthcare systems across the globe:  Healthcare Around the World    Who do you think got it right?

Take Care. Be Well.

-Dave

With all this talk....

I want this blog to function as a conduit of conversation. So, to start it off, here is an interesting take on healthcare reform. I'd love to hear your thoughts an ideas.

Washington Post Article

As a broker, you may find that in the coming weeks and months I may offer commentary. But, my main concern is to spur conversation.

Take care. Be well.

-Dave