The core business of an insurance company is usually to make profits. When meeting their obligations as the insurer, their first instinct is to find the cheapest solution possible in the market, sometimes this is done to the detriment of the insured. When you fall sick, the best way to move forward is to engage doctors in health care process, not insurance companies.
Practices used by insurance companies
Reducing health care cost
Reducing health care cost Insurance companies operate with the prime objective of profit maximization. Therefore when you fall sick or have health complications, they first of all seek to reduce the cost of health care by using the least expensive healthcare facilities available. This will deny you access to the best and most effective healthcare facilities as a patient and also the insured.
Step Therapy
Step therapy Insurance companies use managed or controlled medical care. This is usually intended to reduce the costs and risks that may result from prescription drugs. Step therapy method of treatment employs the use of the most cost-effective drug therapy and gradually progresses to more costly or risky remedies only when very necessary. Sometimes it may be too late to really save the patient.
Insurer prescribes a cheaper but less effective drug
Insurance companies, in their quest to cut costs, prescribe cheaper but less effective drugs. This may affect the health of the insured and further complicate the situation or prolong the time taken to heal.
Alternative drugs prescription by the insurer
Prescribed drugs are rarely available
Insurance companies prescribe alternative drugs to patients. These drugs are mostly different from the conventional medication and are less effective most of the times. This is done to reduce costs incurred when meeting medical expenses of the insured by recommending cheaper alternative drugs. When you engage a doctor in your health care process, he will always prescribe the best and most effective drugs to use irrespective of the cost because that is his job. Most of the prescribed drugs by insurers are rarely available since most hospitals and pharmacists do not stock them. This is the more reason why you should engage a doctor because he or she will know the best and readily available drug for treatment.
Insurers do not care about the side-effects
Insurers do not care about drug side effects. The goal of an insurer is to facilitate treatment using the least expensive option without minding about the side effects of medication to a patient. A doctor will always be very keen about what effects a drug might have on a patient and also the remedies to that.
Get the medicine your doctor prescribed at the beginning
Follow drugs originally prescribed by doctors
Always stick to your doctor’s prescription. A doctor is not looking to make profits as a priority but your care and treatment as the fundamental factor. Follow his prescriptions to the letter and make sure that you don’t switch to other cheaper and less effective alternatives.
Retain doctors advice in health care process
The doctor’s advice should never be ignored at any given time because it is issued in a professional capacity and with your best interest as a patient. By ignoring the professional advice of a doctor, a patient may amplify his or he medical condition in ways unimaginable. The quickest road to recovery is by sticking to these advises. Patients should therefore engage doctors more in the healthcare process as opposed to insurance companies if they want a better and safer way to recovery.
