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Westhill Consulting Insurance - How to Avoid Health Care Fraud Mail-order medications Patients who buy drugs through mail-order companies could be rolling the dice with their health says Dr. Deborah C. Peel, a physician and founder of the nonprofit Patient Privacy Rights. There's a high probability in many cases that these drugs are counterfeit Peel added. "And you don't ever know because the fraudulent tablets look just like the real ones," says Peel. She says ordering from companies that specialize in mail-order sales that are not affiliated with a legitimate insurance company, especially from foreign countries, can be very risky. Not only could the quality be questionable, it could also be illegal. "But people are desperate because we're being so grossly overcharged for medication," she says. Peel says you can lessen costs by buying generic. You can spot it by: the best thing to do is to keep away from buying drugs from foreign or obscure pharmacies. And if you decide to go with the mail-order route, just stay with U.S.-based companies because if it's a U.S. company, you can report the health care fraud to the Food and Drug Administration while if it's a foreign company, there's little that can or will be done. False product claims According to the Federal Trade Commission, millions fall victim each year to false miracle cures. Especially vulnerable are victims of debilitating and potentially deadly illnesses such as cancer, multiple sclerosis, HIV and AIDS. The FTC website says scammers take advantage of people with a grim diagnosis such as cancer and "promote unproven - and potentially dangerous - substances like black salve, essiac tea, or laetrile with claims that the products are both 'natural' and effective." But, say physicians and other experts, simply because something is advertised as "natural" doesn't mean it works. And while a patient is experimenting with bogus treatments, he or she can squander the opportu

Expatriates may find it hard to avail of health insurance when they are in a foreign place. The system varies from that of your own nation and customs of availing is a far cry especially in developing nations. Luckily, developing countries like Indonesia and Thailand are starting to expand its insurance's scope to a more international level, catering to both local and foreign individuals. Companies operating in Jakarta, Indonesia, for instance, realize the importance of a comprehensive medical plan to cover sickness and accidents that happen to the staff that they hire. Westhill Insurance Consulting is also aware of the struggles faced by expatriates when it comes to getting insurance. What preparations do you do then? 1. Find out before you come The company who hired you and the person you are working for should provide medical insurance for you and your family members just as they do with local folks. Ask for details from your employer to ensure that your policy will adequate cover your family members for sickness, accidents or emergencies, on home leave and when you are visiting other countries for work-related purposes. If you are joining a new company, remember that they may never love you more than when you first join. Do not rely on promises that medical insurance coverage will be sorted out when you arrive. It could be the case that what the company considers ideal coverage may not meet your expectations. Be sure before you arrive that you understand what medical coverage your company provides for regular medical concerns, major medical situations such as surgery or deliveries,

According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, healthcare costs are expected to rise by 5.8% each year until 2022, which is going to make for a pretty serious hike in your expenses. Instead of getting frustrated and giving in, though, put your thinking cap on. If you're willing to roll your sleeves up and do a little research, you can find plenty of ways to reduce your medical costs. Here are six of them. 1. Use Urgent Care Facilities Instead of the Emergency Room It's a pretty decent bet that there's an urgent care facility near where you live that you can use in lieu of the emergency room. It won't cost you as much, and many such facilities offer extended hours. Don't wait for the next time an emergency occurs - do an Internet search now to find suitable locations and note their hours of operation. 2. Improve Your Health One of the simplest ways to decrease your medical costs is to improve your health. If you're overweight, join a gym or create a home workout program and adjust your diet to include more fresh fruits and vegetables. Still smoking cigarettes? Buy a patch or join a support group and quit. Got friends who encourage you to party it up on the weekends? Find yourself some new ones or convince them to participate in healthier activities. Concrete steps like these can get you more fit and less likely to need medical attention. 3. Get Generic Prescription Medication Whenever your doctor prescribes any medication, be sure to ask for a generic option. You can save as much as 85%, according to the Food and Drug Administration, which also points out that you don't sacrifice anything in quality by avoiding brand name meds. 4. Pay Your Bill Upfront If you have the means to do so, offer to pay your medical bill upfront for a negotiated discount. This is a shrewd and under-used method to reduce your medical costs. See the billing department at the hospital or your doctor's office for details. 5. Use Your Smartphone A variety of mo

The scams Phantom treatments. Dishonest medical providers will bill health insurers for expensive treatments, tests or equipment you never received - and for illnesses or injuries you don't even have. Double billing. Unethical providers may double- or triple-bill health insurers for the same treatments, hoping the insurer won't discover the overruns in the big stack of bills. Shoddy care. You might receive shoddy or substandard treatment for real and urgent medical problems. One eye doctor shined pen lights into patients' eyes and said he'd performed cataract surgery. Surgeons have used defective pacemakers and catheters during heart surgeries, which have killed patients or required more surgeries to correct the problems. Unneeded care. You might receive dangerous and even life-threatening treatment you don't need. One surgeon performed heart surgery on patients who didn't need it. Bogus insurers. Insurance agents or brokers sell you low-cost health coverage from fake insurance companies. Then they take your premiums and disappear. You're left without vital health coverage, and don't even know it until you make a claim. Identity theft. Cheaters steal your medical ID number, then use it to bill health programs tens of thousands of dollars for phantom treatment. Crooks steal your health info from dumpsters behind medical clinics, break into doctor offices and steal files, and hack into computer databases containing your records. Rolling labs. Mobile diagnostic labs give needless or fake tests or physical exams to consumers, then bill health insurers for expensive procedures. Runners. A person hired by a medical provider to drum up business trolls through neighborhoods, often low-income areas, enticing people to come to a clinic for tests. These runners will even round up children for unneeded tests and procedures.

The clock on insurance deductibles reset on Jan. 1, and that means big medical bills are in store for some. Patients may be required to pay thousands of dollars before their health care coverage kicks in. Insurers typically begin or renew policies in January, and that means customers could face some daunting cost-sharing requirements in the first few months of the year. That's especially true if they need surgery or have a particularly expensive prescription. Deductibles topping $3,000 are common among plans sold on the health care overhaul's public insurance exchanges, which provide coverage for millions. Companies also have been raising deductibles for years on employer-sponsored health plans, the most common form of coverage in the United States. Plus cost-sharing requirements for Medicare prescription drug coverage renew every year. All this adds up to a business boon for organizations like the Patient Access Network Foundation, which offers grants to help cover prescription costs for dozens of life-threatening, chronic or rare diseases. The nonprofit had to hire about 80 temporary employees to help handle the heavy workload it receives at the start of the year. It fielded 4,000 calls a day last month, double its normal total. "Everybody who works doing what we do has the same challenge," CEO Daniel Klein said. Klein's foundation is one option patients can turn to if too many expenses hit at the start of the year. Here are some other tips. Understand your coverage: You can't prepare for medical expenses until you know how big the bills might be. Your insurance should come with a plan summary that lays out important numbers. Start by understanding your plan's deductibles, which can differ significantly depending on whether care is received inside or outside the insurer's network of providers. If you take prescriptions, double check how much they will cost. Drug coverage is commonly divided in

MEDICAL science is hazy about many things, but doctors agree that if a patient is losing pints of blood all over the carpet, it is a good idea to stanch his wounds. The same is true of a health-care system. If crooks are bleeding it of vast quantities of cash, it is time to tighten the safeguards. In America the scale of medical embezzlement is extraordinary. According to Donald Berwick, the ex-boss of Medicare and Medicaid (the public health schemes for the old and poor), America lost between $82 billion and $272 billion in 2011 to medical fraud and abuse (see article). The higher figure is 10% of medical spending and a whopping 1.7% of GDP-as if robbers had made off with the entire output of Tennessee or nearly twice the budget of Britain's National Health Service (NHS). Crooks love American health care for two reasons. First, as Willie Sutton said of banks, it's where the money is-no other country spends nearly as much on pills and procedures. Second, unlike a bank, it is barely guarded. Some scams are simple. Patients claim benefits to which they are not entitled; suppliers charge Medicaid for non-existent services. One doctor was recently accused of fraudulently billing for 1,000 powered wheelchairs, for example. Fancier schemes involve syndicates of health workers and patients. Scammers scour nursing homes for old people willing, for a few hundred dollars, to let pharmacists supply their pills but bill Medicare for much costlier ones. Criminal gangs are switching from cocaine to prescription drugs-the rewards are as juicy, but with less risk of being shot or arrested. One clinic in New York allegedly wrote bogus prescriptions for more than 5m painkillers, which were then sold on the street for $30-90 each. Identity thieves have realised that medical records are more valuable than credit-card numbers.

Practical Saver: Tips for saving money on healthcare By KARA ROZENDAAL Courier Columnist Changes in the health insurance arena have many consumers scrambling for affordable options. Don't despair; there are still ways to save significant money on healthcare. Below are a few medical resources that Prescott has to offer, as well as tips on how to pay less at the doctor's office, and an alternative to health insurance. To save money on premiums, many families opt for higher-deductible health insurance policies. High deductibles generally equate to lower monthly insurance premiums. However, in exchange, the majority of the medical expenses are paid out of pocket. In the case where doctor's visits and medical treatment are paid out-of-pocket, you can save money by asking the medical office if there is a cash pay discount. When a patient pays cash and the business doesn't need to submit the claim to the insurance company, it saves the office time.

Charging you for help getting new insurance Someone contacts you, offering to help you navigate the Health Insurance Marketplace for a fee - or saying that you need a new insurance card now or you'll have to pay a penalty. Regardless of the set-up, their goal is to get your bank account or credit card number. Don't give your information. The people who offer legitimate help with the Health Insurance Marketplace - sometimes called Navigators or Assisters - are not allowed to charge you. In fact, you can't pay them. What's more, you don't need to buy a special insurance card, or pay any penalties for not buying one, either. Bottom line: Never give your money or your information to anyone who contacts you. Medicare cards Someone gets in touch, saying you need a new Medicare card because of "Obamacare." They tell you that you'll lose Medicare coverage if you don't pay a fee for a new card or give them your Social Security number and bank account or credit card number. Not true. The Affordable Care Act doesn't say you need a new Medicare card, or another health insurance card. Nor does the law say you'll lose Medicare coverage. Don't give your personal or financial information to anyone who contacts you. When in doubt, call 1-800-MEDICARE, before you give anyone your money or information. Medical discount plans Someone contacts you, offering discounts on health services and products. They might say the discount plan will save you money and that it meets the minimum coverage required under "Obamacare" so you won't have to pay a penalty or look at other plans. Medical discount plans are not health insurance. Sometimes, medical discount plans illegally pretend to be insurance. The only way to know is to ask specific questions and not pay until you read the terms. Most medical discount plans are a membership in a "club" that claims to offer reduced prices from certain doctors, certain pharmacies, and on some procedures.

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Retiring overseas may seem like a fabulous idea, but the quality of health care often has post 50s thinking twice before making a move abroad. But they needn't worry.Live and Invest Overseas, an online publication devoted to helping those interested in living abroad, has a list of the eight best places to retire for quality health care. (They also published a list of the 21 best places to retire in 2013 earlier this year.)

Not long after she signed up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, Judy Shoemaker received a phone call that puzzled her. The caller said she was welcoming new members to the insurance network and then asked Ms. Shoemaker to take a survey about health care issues, so information could be provided to her physician. Ms. Shoemaker declined, saying she didn't understand why her insurer would be seeking medical information to give to her doctor. "I thought it was strange," said Ms. Shoemaker, a consultant to nonprofits in Indiana. "I can talk to my doctor myself." James Tuck, who runs a dog care business in Chicago, got a similar call after signing up for insurance through the Affordable Care Act in March. The caller said he was contacting Mr. Tuck on behalf of his new insurer, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois, to go over his benefits and ask him some questions. Mr. Tuck hadn't yet received his insurance card and was hesitant to answer questions, especially after he consulted a private health advocate, who had helped him evaluate insurance options. She advised him not to answer the queries. "She said their goal is to find a reason to get you booted off your insurance." Insurers say they are doing nothing of the sort. Lauren Perlstein, a spokeswoman for the Health Care Service Corporation, parent of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois and plans in four other states, said in an email that the company contacted new policy holders to help "new members get the proper coverage and medical assistance they need, by helping guide them through the health care system." The company's "experts" contact new members to explain benefits and answer any questions, she said, as well as to "identify members who can benefit from our personalized medical management program so they can best manage their health."

The needs of elderly parents can surprise even those who are prepared, but you don't have to support your family alone Adult children of older parents should prepare financially for the costs of care and travel. Photograph: Alamy We all want to age like the late Pete Seeger, who celebrated his 90th birthday performing onstage in front of thousands of adoring fans of all ages at Madison Square Garden, and went on to entertain the Newport Jazz Festival audiences a few months later. In our pragmatic moments, we know that the odds of living that long and in such good health aren't in our favor. We know we need to plan not only to live longer but perhaps to spend more time in costly nursing homes or care facilities. It's not just ourselves we have to worry about. Failing to develop a plan to help our parents in their final years could deliver a similar kind of blow to our emotional and financial wellbeing. In the last few months, I've watched three friends, ranging in age from their 40s to the early 60s, scramble to resolve non-medical problems for their parents. In all cases, that meant forking out on costly airfares to be there in person; in one case, it required money to hire a new accountant. "I've always been aware that at some point, there would be an emergency, but I had assumed it would be a stroke or something, not this," one told me, ruefully. A recent US Trust survey revealed that while about half of all Americans have planned for their own long-term care needs, on

Avinash, a businessman, knows how to deal with all kinds of clients. Avinash, a businessman, knows how to deal with all kinds of clients. However, his inexperience in finding good health insurance policies has landed him in trouble a couple of times. In the recent past, he hasn't been able to keep an eye on the rising premiums of his health coverage and ended up spending much more than he should have. It is essential for you to go through the policy premium rates from time to time. Several strategies can be adopted for reducing the premium over a period of time. Rising health insurance policy premiums could be devastating because you would end up spending a big part of your income in paying them. We buy a health insurance policy to secure our future in case of a medical emergency. Even if you can't control expenses with respect to sickness, you can definitely control the rising health cover premiums. Avoid a policy with claim holding Insurance firms are known to charge a huge amount of premium to cover the client, considering it is going to cover the entire cost if the policy benefits are claimed. Sometimes, when you claim the policy benefits, your insurance provider hikes the premiums for the next year. So, it becomes imperative to go for an insurance policy that entails lower burden. For keeping a tab on premiums, it is recommended to opt for a family floater policy. These coverage policies can be taken for all your family members. They are much cheaper as the premiums are divided and you have to pay on an individual basis. Family floater insurance policies come with a two-year waiting period and some of the diseases/disorders that are covered during that time are all kinds of duodenal or gastric ulcers, sinuses, hemorrhoids, fibromyoma, hysterectomy, cataracts, endometriosis, hernia, etc. Opt for a policy with high