Re: eyeware can be really expensive
Posted by Chris in Tampa on 12/29/2021, 2:04 pm
It sounds like you learned a lot from them. It can get expensive. I don't have any vision coverage with my insurance, other than I guess eventually after the deductible if I had expensive issues. I usually only pay around $100 for glasses every few years so it hasn't been expensive so far.

I had never heard of the Merck manuals before. It's a really big resource too.

Anytime someone looks up symptoms it can be a recipe for disaster. I was going to include a link to the symptom checker at WebMD, but no matter what you put it's going to be probably be something minor to a long list of things that includes cancer and other serious things. People can worry themselves over something. And then again, they might think it's something not serious and the opposite happens, they should have went to the doctor.

It's just best to go to the doctor when something out of the ordinary happens, even during the pandemic. That's also been part of the excess deaths, people not going that should have gone to the doctor so maybe they would have caught something early enough to get it treated. Although with hospitals getting full, or already full, you again have some people that are finding it hard to get other treatments other than for the coronavirus. (and flu is worse this year too)



Just a few other quick things I remembered in regard to healthcare in general.

I have a family member in another state that needed to see the doctor over the holidays. They got an appointment and when they showed up it turned out the doctor no longer took their insurance. So they had to go to find a doctor and make another appointment elsewhere. And they have to find a primary care doctor that they want to use in the future. It pays to check things over the phone when you make an appointment. And if it's for the next year, maybe even try to verify if they will still be in the plan the next year. And some doctors may take some plans for the insurance company you have and not others, which I encountered once when looking for an ophthalmologist. I made sure to give my insurance information over the phone, plan and member number, to verify it was in network.

My in network providers list that I can search at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida is kind of broken. When I search for ophthalmologists for example, it only gave my one option basically anywhere near me. But as it turns out, when I searched by doctor name that I got from a list of doctors that someone at Blue Cross gave me, I found other ophthalmologists that were in network. (so that I pay a little less than I would if I had no insurance and maybe it counts toward my deductible, not sure about that last part) I ended up going to an ophthalmologist that was half an hour away from me, the one I found on the website, because they had an earlier appointment. The first place I called near me had their first appointment available on January 31st, 2022. The second place I called had an appointment the next day. So when looking for a doctor for something that can't really wait, maybe keep calling. Both places had good reviews on Google, so I didn't mind driving 30 minutes to get there. I had made an appointment at the first place first and I just canceled it after I got the medicine I needed.
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Coronavirus - Thread #4 (Posts from September 24th - January 4th) - Chris in Tampa, 9/24/2021, 6:54 am
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