Teaching clients how to navigate the U.S. health care system isn’t in the job description for financial advisors, but certified financial planner and physician Carolyn McClanahan has taken on this role.
McClanahan, the founder and director of financial planning at Life Planning Partners in Jacksonville, Fla., believes educating clients to become empowered patients can help them handle this increasingly complicated and costly system.
“Shopping for health care is becoming the default,” she says, noting the growing political and corporate push for health savings accounts linked to high-deductible health plans.
McClanahan, who practiced family medicine and emergency medicine before turning full-time to financial planning 12 years ago, is concerned that more people will skip preventive health care services because of the steep out-of-pocket costs associated with high-deductible health plans. This approach to health care is also troublesome for acute medical situations.
“I’m sorry, when you’re having a heart attack, are you going to shop for care?” says McClanahan, who volunteers two evenings a month in the medical clinic of a homeless shelter.
McClanahan doesn’t think people should retire early unless they have good health insurance. Here are some suggestions she shares with clients if a conversation turns to health care costs or if a client has significant health events:
If you hit your annual out-of-pocket maximum because of a big medical event, have all family members get everything done that year. This includes checkups, blood work, skin checks and mole removal, and physical therapy for aches and pains. Also, if possible, refill and stock up on prescriptions. “Once you hit the out-of-pocket max, you don’t have to pay another dollar so you might as well take advantage,” she says.
If you have a chronic health condition, work with your doctor to make sure you’re on the most effective regimen. For example, it may be cheaper to pay out of pocket for generic drugs in bulk instead of buying prescriptions through an insurance company.
Never ask if a doctor “takes your insurance.” Instead, always ask if a doctor “is in your network.” Document who tells you they are. “We’ve had a number of clients use doctors who say they take a patient’s insurance only to find out they are out of network with higher charges,” she says. “They’ve challenged that and gotten their money back.”
McClanahan has plenty of ideas on what measures can be taken to improve the U.S. health care system and lower medical costs. She’s a big proponent of having a strong primary care system, which she says is all the care that the majority of the population requires.