Health Insurance For Solo Entrepreneurs

One of the most important benefits employed people enjoy is health insurance coverage. It is also the single most costly expense for self-employed entrepreneurs. So what can you do to reduce ever increasing costs of health care coverage? Here are a few tips.

1. If a medical bill seems excessive, try negotiating

Your doctor or the office manager who handles billing will probably be flexible, provided you make a valid case. When one woman in Texas was charged $900 for surgery and "consultation," she explained that she had visited the hospital just once, for surgery; her bill was promptly cut by $370.

2.. Contact a medical bill "auditor"

Several services have a medical bill "auditing" system that evaluates your medical bills to determine if errors occurred in the billing process. Considering that 97 percent of hospital medical bills contain errors, it's no wonder why out-of-pocket medical expenses are on the rise for consumers. Because the typical hospital bill is extremely complicated, often containing several hundred line-item charges, there is ample opportunity for computer mistakes and accidental human error. Do a Google search for medical bill auditors to find companies offering this service.

3. You may get a tax break on your medical bills

Keep all your medical bills together and add them up at tax time. If they exceed 7.5 percent of your adjusted gross income, you may deduct the excess. Please note that these items also may be included in the total: the cost of eye glasses, contact lenses, physical therapy, x-rays, hearing aids, psychiatric care, insurance and transportation to the hospital or doctor's office (at 30 cents a mile). There are phase-outs in some cases based on adjusted gross income. Check with your professional tax adviser.

4. Deduct 100% of your healthcare costs from your taxes

The IRS allows all self-employed to deduct 100% of health care costs from their taxes by using Section 105 of the Internal Revenue Code. To receive this deduction, you must do the following:

a) Hire your spouse as an employee of your business.

b) Have your spouse receive health insurance in his or her name, and include the family on the policy.

c) Pay your spouse a salary that will cover the costs of the insurance.

d) Talk to your tax professional about planning for Section 105 on your taxes.

We all know your spouse is active in your business. Now, you can equally recognize their contribution he or she makes - and get Uncle Sam to give you a tax break.

5. Help for families with kids -- CHIP

All states have established new programs that help lower income families with children to pay for health insurance for their kids. Financed partly by the federal government, the Children's Health Insurance Programs (CHIP) operate either as an expansion of the state's Medicaid program or a subsidy for basic private health insurance. Eligible families may be able to access coverage for their children at greatly reduced premiums which will vary depending upon family income. Contact your state Department of Health or Insurance for more information.

6. Shop around

Hospital costs vary widely, especially between urban and rural facilities. If your doctor has admitting privileges at more than one hospital, find out if you can be admitted to the one that's less expensive. Keep in mind that hospitals operated by non-profit foundations are usually less expensive than investor-owned, for profit hospitals. To find out how much your local hospitals charge, ask your doctor. Many states have Health Services Cost Review Commissions, which compile such data.

7. Check for free clinics in your community

You and your entire family can save hundreds of dollars by taking advantage of the many free screenings, immunizations, and other health clinics offered by your local community or a town near you. Numerous community hospitals and social services can provide blood pressure checks, shots for your children, free contraceptives and/or advice, and other preventative health care at little to no cost.

8. Get a second opinion out of town

Believe it or not, your chance of undergoing an expensive surgery or preventative procedure may depend solely on where you happen to live. Statistics show that the frequency in which certain medical procedures are performed varies widely from location to location. For example, residents of New Haven, Conn., are twice as likely to undergo a coronary bypass operation as residents of Boston, Mass. What's the reason for this discrepancy? One Dartmouth Medical School expert, John E. Wennberg, M.D., M.H.P., explains that certain operations are simply more fashionable in some parts of the United States than others. So, if you plan to get a second opinion prior to surgery, consider going to a specialist in another city. In addition, try to find out what the surgery rates for your procedure are in different cities. HealthAllies.com also offers this service online. To get the names of second-opinion doctors in your region, call the U.S. government's toll-free second-opinion hotline at 1-800-638-6833.

9. Don't pay double for a second opinion

As you make arrangements for a second opinion, ask your doctor to send copies of your medical records, x-rays, and lab tests to the second-opinion doctor. These tests don't need duplication; your second doctor will have the information he or she needs - and you don't pay double.

10. Emotional stability

Your mental health is equally important as your physical health. Do you have blue days once in awhile, or struggle with gray winters? St. John's Wort, an over-the-counter herbal supplement, has been proven to increase positive moods. Before rushing to your family physician for medication to make you feel better, try supplements with a combination of expressing your feelings with friends and a healthy lifestyle. Mood stabilizers are some of the most costly medications on the market today. However, you should be aware of the signs of stress or even depression. Give yourself a simple screening test:

• Do you have feelings of sadness and/or irritability?
• Has there been a loss of interest in pleasure activities you once enjoyed?
• Have there been changes in your weight or appetite?
• Have you noticed changes in your sleeping pattern?
• Are you feeling guilty?
• Do you have the inability to concentrate, remember things or make decisions?
• Are you fatigued or have a loss of energy?
• Do you experience restlessness or decreased activity noticed by others?
• Do you have feelings of hopelessness or worthlessness?
• Do you have thoughts of suicide or death?

If you answer "yes" to any of these questions, consider consulting your family physician. If they recommend mental health treatment, it is more cost-effective to have your family physician prescribe mood stabilizers instead of seeing a psychiatrist. However, follow your doctor's instructions on counseling and referrals to mental health professionals.

11. Order your prescription drugs by phone, web or mail

There are many discount prescription drug benefits available for a modest cost. Communicating for Agriculture and the Self-Employed offers a free prescription card through PCS. This program saves its members up to 40 percent at over 55,000 pharmacies nationwide. On average, CA members save $9.39 per prescription order. You can enroll free on SelfEmployedCountry.org.

12. Ask your doctor to prescribe generic drugs

Medicine marketed under its scientific name is usually 50 percent cheaper and just as effective as brand-name versions. In addition, look for generic drugs in the medicine you purchase over the counter. For example, 100 generic aspirin may cost $1.79; the same ingredients packaged under a well-known brand name can cost more than $5 for 100 tablets. Consider, also, just how important the new easy-to-swallow products are to your comfort. The lesser price of some medicines may be comparably easier to swallow when thinking about your budget.

13. Get enrolled in a group plan

For self employed people including those involved in small businesses, individual health insurance can be extremely costly - sometimes as much as 30 percent of your take home pay. By joining associations like National Association for the Self Employed (www.nase.org), you have the opportunity to enroll in a group insurance plan with unique built-in cost controls.

14. Choose a higher deductible

Often for the healthy family, the number of visits to the doctor totals less than $250 a year, a normally low deductible rate. This low deduction rate, however, can end up costing you more in the form of higher premiums. If your family has enjoyed good health for a number of years, you may want to switch to a higher deductible of $500 or $1000. You'll notice greatly reduced premiums.

15. Pay premiums annually

You avoid the service fee and may also receive a discount from your insurance carrier. Check with your insurance agent about how much money you can save if you pay your premium one time during the year.

16. Make sure there's a ceiling for out-of-pocket expenses for catastrophic illnesses

About half of individual policyholders lack this important provision, according to insurance experts, who recommend a major medical policy with a stop-loss clause limiting policyholder payout to $2,000 or $3,000.

17. Get educated about your health

Invest in your health by becoming information-rich. Read publications about health care. Pay special attention to free wellness publications like Inside Mayo Clinic at MayoClinic.org or have on hand a book on medical self-care, like The AAFP Family Health and Medical Guide and The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy. A wealth of information is also available on the Internet.

18. Take advantage of free health advice

For free information booklets from the U.S. government about nearly every health care topic you can imagine, simply write to the Consumer Information Center in Pueblo, Colorado. The government offers several dozen booklets on topics ranging from nutrition, medical problems, mental health, to drugs, exercise and weight control. To receive a catalog explaining these booklets, write to:

19. Brush up on first-aid skills and become CPR certified.

Proper treatment of various accidents may reduce the number of visits to the doctor, and can save lives in an emergency. It's important to always keep an updated medical kit in your home or office.

Here are the basics for your first-aid kit:

• bandage supplies, including a roll of 3 inch wide gauze, individually packaged 4 inch sterile gauze pads, a roll of 1 inch bandage tape, butterfly bandage tape, and scissors
• elastic bandages
• cotton swabs
• sterile dressings or towels
• pain reliever (acetaminophen or ibuprofen)
• anti-inflammatory medicine (ibuprofen)
• ipecac syrup (for use on advice of medical professional to induce vomiting)
• tweezers
• hydrogen peroxide
• skin creams, including hydrocortisone cream, calamine lotion and antibiotic creams
• an antihistamine (diphenhydramine for allergic reactions)
• flashlight
• eye patch
• arm sling
• tongue depressors (to be used as a finger splint)
• ice pack
• re-hydration fluids (such as Pedialyte or Infalyte)

20. Take a lifestyle approach to wellness - every day

Take charge of your health by making simple changes in your lifestyle. By following these seven basic rules of good health, you'll improve your chances of living a long, healthy, active life.

• Get eight hours of sleep per night.
• Eat breakfast every morning.
• Cut down on snacks between meals.
• Keep within 10 pounds of your recommended weight range. If you're unsure what your weight range should be check with your doctor.
• Exercise aerobically for at least 30 minutes three times per week.
• Don't smoke.
• Don't drink more than two alcoholic beverages per day.
• Take recommended dosages of vitamins and supplements.

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A New Healthcare Financing Solution

In this era of creative financing and cost management tools, many employers are looking for new ways to help employees finance their health care expenses. 

As an employer, you want to provide good coverage, but the cost increases in recent years have been tough to handle. A typical response to these increases may be to select a high-deductible insurance product that lowers your cost. However, there is a better solution. 

Think HMO. That's right - health maintenance organizations. The HMOs of today offer a whole new generation of health care financing tools that every employer should consider. 

It's not your father's HMO.
You may have heard bad stories or had a rough experience in the past. However, times have changed. HMO plans today offer extensive provider networks, excellent coverage for preventive care, the ability to frequently change a primary care physician and outstanding prescription drug coverage through broad pharmacy networks. 

HMOs take the surprise out of the bill.
With most health insurance plans, an employee is responsible for a percentage of the cost of care, often 20 percent or 25 percent. This can add up very quickly, and employees can't predict what their expense is going to be. 

With an HMO structured co-pay plan, an employee knows up front the expenses associated with most covered services. For example, an employee may have a $20 copay for a primary care physician (PCP) visit, which will include all services provided in that visit. Each time employees go to their PCP, they can expect to pay $20 - no surprises there. 

Higher co-pays offer savings.
The days of nickel sodas and 25-cent phone calls are long gone - and so are $5 and $10 co-pay plans. It's time to rethink the value of co-pays. New HMO plans have higher co-pays, some as high as $30 for a primary care visit and $50 for a specialist. But that covers all services provided during that visit. That's a valuable cost limit these days. 

HMOs offer bold new designs.
New HMO plans have fresh cost-sharing strategies that provide low employee out-ofpocket expenses in some areas while controlling your costs by increasing employee expenses through deductibles in other areas. 

In most deductible-based plans, employees have a high deductible that applies to all services. However, with these new focused-deductible HMO plans, the deductible is limited to specific services, such as hospital care or prescription drugs. After the deductible is satisfied, a co-pay also applies to that service. 

Furthermore, with these plans, employees continue to have a co-pay instead of a deductible for highly utilized areas such as physician or specialist visits. 

HMOs are FSA and HRA compatible.
Many HMO plans can be used with flexible spending and health reimbursement accounts, enabling employees to decide how some of their health care dollars are used. Many carriers are also developing health spending account-compatible HMO plans. 

HMOs offer more than health insurance.
Today's HMO plans offer health improvement programs such as discounted fitness club memberships and valueadded options that let employees take charge of their own health. 

There are two primary reasons to revisit today's HMO - savings to you and savings to your employees. Rediscover today's HMO - you'll be pleased with what you find.

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Eight Rules for Applying for Individual Health Insurance

Frustrated at applying for individual health insurance? Well, you are not alone. As a health insurance agent with over 30 years of experience, I can tell you that applications have only gotten longer over the years. A lot longer. The interesting thing is this though, that getting accepted for individual and family health insurance has actually gotten easier. Many conditions that used to result in a decline are now either approved at the standard rate or with a surcharge, or risk-adjusted rate.

The other factor is in the way questions are asked. For example, the introduction to the health history section of an application used to say, "Have you ever seen a health care provider, had treatment for any of the following conditions", etc. The problem was with the word "ever." Ever means back to birth. Well, who can remember every ailment they had so many years ago? This caused not only a lot of stress for people applying for individual and family health insurance it caused a lot of extra work for underwriters too.
That changed when the insurers stopped using that line as their lead-in. Instead they started confining their questions to specific time frames depending on the condition, with statements like, "Within the past five (or two, or ten etc.) years, have you had... " This was a huge step forward, and dramatically improved the approval rate for individual health insurance applicants. This leads to my first rule:

Rule #1: Read each question carefully. If you had a strained back 6 years ago and the question asks if you had treatment on your back within the last 5 years, your answer is no. If you are not sure when you strained your back, call your doctor's office first and ask them when your visit was. Undoing an incorrect answer after an application has been submitted is far harder than providing the correct information in the first place. And it delays the underwriting process.


Rule #2: Never self-diagnose a past health condition. If you and the doctor discussed the possibility of arthritis but you can't remember if he or she said you actually suffer from it, call their office and ask. You have the right to ask about anything in your medical records, so do not hesitate to ask.

Rule #3: Make sure you have all of the current contact information about your medical providers, like their address, phone and fax numbers. This is very helpful to the underwriters so that they don't waste time searching for the information themselves.


Rule #4: Expect a phone call from the insurer. All health insurers these days prefer to call and speak directly with you. This is faster and cheaper than requesting information from your doctors. It's also a good idea to keep a copy of your application handy so that when they call you'll have what you wrote down with you. They want to confirm your answers and clarify anything that may affect their underwriting decision. Be straightforward but do not volunteer extraneous details that could result in more questions from them.

Rule #5: If you take any kind of prescription medication, make sure you know when it was prescribed, the strength, dosage, and frequency with which you take it. If you take a generic form of a drug, be sure to indicate that. Insurance companies would prefer that you are taking generics, as they are far less expensive and you are far more likely to get a better underwriting outcome.

Rule #6: If using a paper application, be sure to sign in all the places required. This is very important, because the company will mail the entire application back to you if you are missing even one signature. This can be very aggravating, and delay the approval process.

Rule #7: If you apply for individual health insurance online, it's always a good idea to have all your medical history information at your fingertips before you log on to the application site. Many online application programs have a timeout feature, so it you are off looking for details and it takes more than 5 minutes, some will end the session due to inactivity.

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How To Compare Private Health Insurance To Get The Best Rate

You don't want to take any kind of risks with your family's health care, so finding the best quality health insurance plan and the best price is important. The question is where can you get low-cost health care coverage with a reputable provider?

Decide Which Kind Of Health Care Insurance You Need

The first step in finding the best medical insurance quote is to decide which kind of insurance plan you need. Numerous choices are out there, including:
- Major Medical Plans, which protect you in the event of accidents as well as serious illnesses, but permit you to handle everyday healthcare fees yourself. These are generally the lowest priced health care plans. They cover your hospital stays when you are ill or injured, but you are responsible for doctor visits and prescription drugs.
- Managed care plans including PPOs (Preferred Provider Organizations) and HMOs (Health Maintenance Organizations) in which you trade some flexibility and choice for a lower rate. They are the cheapest all-inclusive health care plans, covering your hospital expenses, visits to the doctor, as well as prescription medications. But the only health care professionals you are able to see are the ones in your HMO or PPO network.
- Medical Savings Account Plans - These plans allow you to place money in a tax-exempt savings account to use for medical needs. These plans are for people who are self employed or for small businesses with fewer than 50 employees.
- Fee-For-Service Plans, also known as Indemnity Plans, cover your medical costs after you pay your insurance deductible. These plans pay for your prescription medications, your visits to the doctor, as well as your hospital bills, plus they let you choose your own medical doctor. Since they're the most flexible of the health care plans they're also the costliest.

Which Plan Is Best

If you're young and in good health, a relatively inexpensive Major Medical Plan could be your best option. An HMO or PPO could be your best choice if you're on a financial budget and will need, or think you might need, heath care treatment. And if money is no object, a traditional Indemnity plan could be the ideal plan for you.

Where To Get The Cheapest Price Quote

Because prices can differ by several hundred dollars from one provider to another, obtaining a quote through your neighborhood agent is not an option if you want to receive the best rate. To ensure you get the best rate, you'll need insurance quotes from a number of companies.
Happily, there are insurance comparison sites which make obtaining and comparing insurance quotes from many different companies a snap.
All you need to do is visit the comparison site and fill in an easy questionnaire with details about yourself and your insurance needs. After you submit your questionnaire, you'll receive insurance quotes that you'll be able to compare from a number of top insurance providers.

Conclusion

Finding cheap health insurance coverage through a top provider is not really all that hard. All it takes is a little time to figure out which kind of insurance plan will fit your needs, then spend a few minutes at an insurance comparison site to get the lowest priced insurance plan with a top company. It's fast, it's easy, and it's free.

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Tips to Be Successfully Compliant With HIPAA

Most healthcare organizations know what HIPAA requirements are. However, considering recent regulatory and enforcement changes brings to the importance to be successfully compliant. Today, we will present ways that will ensure that a healthcare organization's preparation for compliance with HIPAA is proper and effective.

Assign a Compliance Officer

If your organization has been categorized as a covered entity, you will need to designate a compliance officer to make sure that your policies and procedures are in compliance with those required by HIPAA. Your Compliance Officer must be completely aware of what is expected of the role. Overall, they play an essential part in deciding what regulations the covered entity should follow and have to be prepared to answer questions that may be asked by the OCR about HIPAA compliance. Also, the Compliance Officer must keep you updated with the new regulations rules that are created because the healthcare organization may be required to adopt them.

Adopt Appropriate Policies and Procedures

One of the main advices to consider when being HIPAA compliant is to establish policies and procedures that restrict the physical access to electronic information systems. Covered entities must provide policies for examining activities in information programs that contain ePHI and especially when transmitting electronically records. Therefore, records of the system activity such as access reports and audit logs have to be reviewed regularly as well as reports, monitoring and violation logging must be documented. It is essential for the covered entity to terminate electronic sessions and to provide encrypting of ePHI.

Train Employees on HIPAA Compliance

Most covered entities have been offering HIPAA rules training to employees for some years. Nevertheless, being aware of recent regulations and enforcement alterations, we may conclude that it is important to ensure organization's HIPAA training is up to date. According to the HIPAA rules, all covered entities are required to deliver training to its employees in order to make sure that operational activities are carried out in compliance with HIPAA. Furthermore, workforce that is not properly educated on HIPAA compliance can cause a data breach, which will most probably bring to incorrigible damage to any organization's reputation.

Define a Contingency Plan

Another important precaution for successful compliance with HIPAA is to define a proper Contingency plan. It should include policies and procedures for reacting to an emergency or other event that causes damages to the systems, containing ePHI. The specifications of the Contingency plan comprise data backup plan, disaster recovery plan, emergency mode operation plan, testing and revision procedures and data analysis. Specifically, the backup plan needs to be tested repeatedly to ensure it is properly working.

Implement Security Software

Healthcare organizations are recommended to install appropriate security software in order to reduce the risk of data violations and to ensure data security and automate regulatory HIPAA compliance. Therefore, most covered entities look for options that will solve security configuration management and will provide continuous monitoring to detect incident problems. It is extremely beneficial for them to use software that monitors and records access and all user activities in information systems, containing ePHI.
There are a lot more tips to help you meet HIPAA compliance requirements. That is only a brief summary of many of the major points. If you consider you are a covered entity, you really need to keep updates with recent regulations as they apply to your specific organization.

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