How Healthcare Works, LLC

 Managed care can often feel like your health insurance plan is managing you. Finding your way through it can be like weaving your way through spider webs in a haunted house. Once you are done being entangled and entrapped in one web, you feel like there is another one to walk through. So much is happening around you that you don't understand. Once the lights are on, you see that everything wasn't as scary as you thought. Shedding some light on your health care plan, too, can make it seem less frightening. 1. Pay Attention When Selecting Your Plan. When providing you with information about your employer-sponsored, private pay, and even government-backed health plans (like Medicaid), you are usually given a grid. The grid shows what is covered at optimum levels and lower levels of plan payments and coverage. Take the time to read the grid. Reading it isn't fun or interesting, but it will pay off in the long run. Be honest with yourself about your healthcare needs. If you hav

It's late at night, and you have to work in the morning. After a long weekend of fun and supposed relaxation, you realize you aren't feeling the best. You decide to give it a couple of days and see if your symptoms get any better. If they don't, then maybe you will make a doctor's appointment. Before you check into the clinic, make sure you know the ins and outs of being your own advocate. 1. Do Your Research. We live in this great era where we have all kinds of information at our fingertips. Almost anything and everything can be found on the internet. Several websites also exist where you can check your symptoms and try to guesstimate what illness you may have. My personal favorite symptom checker websites are WebMD and Mayo Clinic . These symptom checker sites also usually have treatment options listed for each illness. Sometimes, you can treat yourself and your symptoms at home without going to the doctor. At others, you may need intervention by a medical profession

 As a faculty member, I taught a healthcare communications course. The students would walk in and say, "This class is going to be easy, because how hard can health communication be?" One of the many lessons we have learned from the pandemic is that health communication, especially effective health communication, is not easy. In fact, many healthcare experts say we have developed a form of miscommunication so monumental that we have created another problem of pandemic proportions. We have created an infodemic .  In public health and in other forms of health care, we look at health indicators or underlying factors that cause disease to determine how to treat it. So, how do we go about treating the infodemic ?  1. Follow the KISS philosophy. My high school chemistry teacher, Mr. Dieken, used to tell us he followed the KISS philosophy, Keep It Simple, Stupid. Even though we were all pretty sure that Mr. Dieken had the skills and the knowledge to probably build an atomic bomb, he

Millions of Americans are waiting with bated breath to see what will happen with the unemployment supplement provided during the coronavirus pandemic. However, the supplement end date has passed and no new legislation extending or even modifying the supplement has been enacted. As such, those millions of unemployed workers who were depending on their unemployment benefits to get them through the virus are now scrambling and flooding the job market. Without a doubt, possibly millions of resumes will be sent out this week in hopes of alleviating the financial pressure Americans are feeling this week.  If you are one of those Americans looking for a job, I would like to provide you with some useful tips so you only apply for jobs for which you are qualified. I know, there are stories about people sending out mass resumes and blanket resumes to companies, and they land jobs. However, in reality, those stories are rare. During my healthcare administration career, I have reviewed possibly

Okay, I'm sure you read the title of this post and thought I was going to say something about doing your research for papers or presentations. Or, you might have thought I meant to do your research before you post randomwebsite.com latest COVID-19 news on social media. No. That's not what I am talking about. Do your research on yourself. After all, part of what How Healthcare Works is about is personal and professional leadership development. 1. Google Yourself. I remember when I first started "Googling" myself. Actually, "Google" wasn't even around then. We were still calling the internet the "worldwide web," and I probably used Netscape or Internet Explorer to conduct my web search. But, the thing to do, just for fun, was to search your name and see if it came up anywhere. And, my name did...here and there. I thought it was cool, and I didn't think too much of it. As time went on, my name appeared more and more. Now, that I have a pret

I'm going to throw some facts out at you and let you digest them. Please know that I am aware that I have primarily only included two racial/ethnic groups in this post. That is intentional on my part. If you would like a post with similar information regarding a different racial/ethnic group, I would be happy to do so at a later date.  Government Assistance Whites without a college degree (less than an associate's degree) are the largest racial/ethnic group recipients of government assistance programs.   *40% of Medicaid recipients are white. In 20 states, over half of the recipients are white.  *21% of Medicaid recipients are black. In Washington, D.C., and 2 states, Louisiana and Mississippi, over half of the recipients are black.  *32.7% of TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) recipients are white. In 16 states, over half of the recipients are white. *31.0% of TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) recipients are black. In 17 states, over half of the recipi

In this post, I am going to teach you how to use a process improvement and problem-solving tool. It is called "idea mapping." Some people may call this brainstorming, but it actually goes a bit further than brainstorming. Idea mapping is about getting your usable, real ideas, goals, and areas for improvement down on paper, and then applying an actual process for how you are going to achieve those goals. You are basically going to go from a jumbled group of goals to the finish line of a completed goal. For my example idea map, I picked "Move to a New City." I chose this one because it's that time of year when a lot of students just graduated from college, and now they are looking for a new adventure. Or, maybe they found their first big job and they are going to have to move. Maybe you have a family, and you have to move somewhere with your family. Maybe after all of this business with COVID-19, you have decided you really want to move away from where you live