medical costs

As part of my participation in the personal finance bloggers weight loss challenge I decided to investigate what weight loss expenses I could pay for with my Health Savings Account (HSA). The short answer is no, you can't use your health savings account to cover the cost of getting in shape but...

A recent study by the Integrated Care Collaboration (ICC) of emergency room visits in Central Texas discovered that, over the past six years, nine individuals have made 2,678 ER visits to local hospitals, at a cost of $3 million. One of these people visited 145 times last year and 554 times in the...

In February, an internist in suburban New York, Dr. Richard Klein, ran an ad in a local Pennysaver advertising free medical care for existing patients who had lost their jobs and had no health insurance. Yes, I said free -- no strings attached. Crises in malpractice insurance and reduced...

Many people have caught on to the potential savings of asking their doctors for prescriptions for pills twice the strength of their prescribed dosage, then cutting them in half. By doing so, patients avoid paying two co-pays, and often the cost of one stronger pill is less than that of two of half...

One often expressed suggestion for controlling public health care costs is for Medicare to adopt a strategy of the private insurance industry by assigning a care coordinator to the patient. This coordinator could, theoretically, identify care overlap, unnecessary procedures, lower-cost...

Last week I received a letter in the mail from my local Walgreen's pharmacy informing me that Zyrtec is now available as an over-the-counter medication. My eight year-old son takes the medication for seasonal allergies, which begin to cause itchy eyes and sneezing by early to mid-March here in the...