HHI Podcast Page

The Houston Healthcare Initiative Co-Op Podcast Page!

What Is Prior Authorization & What To Do About It

Prior approval is a way that insurance companies decide on how or whether a prescribed medical service, medication, test or procedure meets their coverage criteria. What can people do? Listen to find out.

 

What If I Do Not Have Health Insurance?

What happens if someone does not have health insurance? The ramifications will affect the tax filings of people this year but be different next year. Beyond the financial implications, there are others for patients and their loved ones. Here to help us learn what to do and why is Houston based neurologist and the founder of the Houston Health Initiative Dr. Steven Goldstein. You can learn more about The Houston Healthcare Initiative Co-Op at their web site, www.houstonhealthcareinitiative.org.

 

An overview of the Houston Healthcare Initiative Co-Op. 

Complexities of Health Coverage

Healthcare and what causes rates for services and insurance to go up at a startling rate are complicated. What is not that complex is the need for an affordable way to pay for most medical and doctor related expenses. That is what the Houston Healthcare Initiative (HHI) is offering in the form of a member owned co-op. The HHI initiative can replace traditional health insurance for qualified individuals and families. HHI will provide affordable medical coverage through a combination of negotiated rates, low monthly payments, personal accountability and lifestyle incentives. The medical co-op promises to save qualifying individuals and families money on health insurance. At the same time, HHI will help uphold quality care by asking members to bear some responsibility and individual accountability for maintaining their personal health.

 

 

Changing Insurance Providers & Managing Change

Medical and health coverage is often a complex proposition for people whether they are thinking of changing providers or getting one for the first time. HHI has a free brochure and lots of other free information about the coverage available from the web site at: houstonhealthcareinitiative.org. Or call them at 346-400-2789 and talk with them in real time.

 

Unintended Consequences of Not Purchasing Insurance

Remember President Obama’s promise to lower health care rates? Experts now say health insurance will be crazy expensive again in 2019. The Heritage Foundation’s Doug Badger says Obamacare was supposed to get lots of young subscribers to sign up and help subsidize the older among us, but that didn’t happen. Young people found that in many cases paying the penalty was still less expensive than insurance. Consider too that millennials tend to marry and start families later in life than those who came before them, so the perceived need for insurance is not as obvious to them as it is for people who have more responsibility. Here to help us make sense of it all is Dr. Steven Goldstein, a much-respected neurologist and founder of the Houston Healthcare Initiative.

Fines for not purchasing insurance under ‘Obamacare’ were supposed to cause more people buy insurance and lower the cost, but neither happened. Dr. Steven Goldstein, respected Houston neurologist and founder of the Houston Healthcare Initiative (www.houstonhealthcareinitiative.org) discussed the ramifications of the cancellation of financial penalties associated with ‘Obamacare’ among other things, on his weekly podcast. To hear the podcast go to https://houstonhealthcareinitiative.org/the-houston-healthcare-initiative-podcast/.

As the Trump administration has cancelled the fines assessed for not purchasing health insurance that were mandated by President Obama, the impact of the removal of these government-imposed purchases did nothing to lower the price of insurance or make the American public healthier. The positive effect of Obamacare on the price of insurance was what was promised, though little happened to make charges for insurance more affordable.

 

Time To Renew Your Health Insurance

It is the time of year for all of us to renew our existing health insurance or pick a provider. Open enrollment for the individual health insurance market starts November 1 and lasts through December 15, 2018. The sign-up time and role of the government in our health care begs the question; is access to healthcare a right or is it a privilege or something else? Should we also have the right to not purchase insurance? To help us sort through this we need someone well versed in medicine and health coverage and we find both in the founder of the Houston Healthcare Initiative (HHI) Dr. Steven Goldstein.

 

Managing Prescription Medicine Costs

Prescription medicine is expensive, and in some cases unaffordable. The reasons for the high costs of some medicine are talked about by patients, physicians and politicians. But the reasons for high costs matter less than the reality that there are people who could get their medicine for a lot less money if they knew just a few things about how drugs are sourced and priced.  Here today to help us crack this code and hack drug prices is respected Houston based neurologist and founder of the Houston Healthcare Initiative Co-Op Dr. Steven Goldstein.

Most people have read or heard about how high the price of prescription medicine is here in the U.S. and how relatively inexpensive it is in other countries, especially Canada. What do the Canadians know? According to Dr. Goldstein, prices for drugs in Canada are set by a special review board that compares prices of medicine in Europeto then decide what to charge.  “Here in the U.S. Medicaid does not negotiate prices with the pharmaceutical companies and consequently the prices are higher,” Dr. Goldstein told his listeners.

 

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