If your spouse or partner wakes up in the middle of the night complaining of chest pain, which of these would you choose?: 1) Call 911 for an ambulance or 2) fire up your computer, go online to compare prices for cardiac care at nearby hospitals, pick the most reasonably priced facility and then direct…
The post Will President Trump’s Hospital Price Transparency Plan Lower Costs? appeared first on Next Avenue.
Our ability to avoid outliving our money is, in large part, due to our expenses in retirement. Turns out, a new study reveals, we’re pretty lousy at predicting how much we’ll actually spend on housing and health care when we retire. And another study shows our spending just before retirement and in the first years…
The post Here’s the Reality About What We’ll Spend in Retirement appeared first on Next Avenue.
Much of the media attention over the Democratic presidential candidates’ two-night showdown in Motown focused on who had the knockout jabs and lines. I was watching to hear what the 20 White House hopefuls said they’d do to try to make lives better for Next Avenue’s readers in their 50s and 60s, their parents and…
The post 2020 Election: Takeaways for Older Voters From the CNN Debates appeared first on Next Avenue.
Medicare paid for Betty Gordon’s knee replacement surgery in March, but the 72-year-old former high school teacher needed a nursing home stay and care at home to recover. Yet Medicare wouldn’t pay for that. So Gordon is stuck with a $7,000 bill she can’t afford — and, as if that were not bad enough, she…
The post Lawsuit Seeks to Let Medicare Patients Appeal Coverage Gap appeared first on Next Avenue.
(Editor’s note: This story is part of a series for The John A. Hartford Foundation.) Margaret Birt, then 62, had routine surgery in 2006. But in the recovery room, she had complete cardiac arrest. Initially in a vegetative state, Birt regained much of her cognition. Her life, however, was never the same. She was left with…
The post House Calls Provide Better Care and Save Money. Why Don’t More Use Them? appeared first on Next Avenue.
Have you ever wondered how pharmaceutical companies decide whether that pill you take costs $3 or $3,000? Or why some new drug, or a potentially life-enhancing procedure, may not be covered under your insurance plan? In the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration determines whether a drug or treatment is safe enough for patients. However,…
The post Some Say a Nonprofit Research Group Unfairly Influences Drug Prices appeared first on Next Avenue.
You know the old expression, “Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.” I sometimes feel that way about the high cost of health care. But Dr. Marty Makary, author of the new book about America’s health care system — The Price We Pay — is someone who’s actually doing something about…
The post What Broke American Health Care and How to Fix It appeared first on Next Avenue.
(Editor’s note: This story is part of a series for The John A. Hartford Foundation.) About 70% of patients want to talk about cost with their physicians, but fewer than one-third actually do, according to polling conducted a few years ago by Avalere Health for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Nearly half of people polled reported…
The post If Doctors Were Cost-Conscious appeared first on Next Avenue.
When steep medical costs cut into your retirement savings, the results can be staggering and painful. They were for the mother of Bradford Daniel Creger, chief economist & lead wealth strategist at Total Financial Resource Group in Glendale, Calif. Creger’s dad was a successful stockbroker who was forced to retire at 51, due to Parkinson’s…
The post Ways to Keep Health Costs From Cutting Into Retirement Savings appeared first on Next Avenue.
As COVID-19 sweeps across the globe, “we know now more than ever our health is at risk and that we may experience unexpected medical expenses,” says Juan Carlos Cruz, founder of Britewater Financial Group in Brooklyn, N.Y. What you may not know is that a health savings account (HSA) could help and that The CARES…
The post Making the Most of Health Savings Accounts During COVID-19 appeared first on Next Avenue.
