The American healthcare system is unique and confusing when compared to similar first-world countries.
We don’t have universally funded health care, although the Affordable Care Act is sometimes regarded as a tentative step in that general direction. But for now, there are multiple insurance providers and multiple tiers of insurance, and all that means it’s really hard to know when and if certain procedures or treatments will be covered. Then there’s the fact that “health insurance” covers trips to the doctor with the flu, or a trip to the emergency room with a broken arm, but it won’t cover glasses or dental cleanings. If you need those, you’ll need vision and dental coverage, respectively.
If you need rehab
Alcohol and drug addiction is one of the biggest challenges anyone can face in a lifetime. Addiction often starts small and then grows and grows until it takes over our lives. Once we realize there’s a problem, we’ll likely feel the need to take quick action because of the whole “If you don’t do it now, you might lose your nerve” thing. But one thing that stops people from immediately entering a rehab facility is the insurance question. It’s virtually impossible to know that insurance will cover in-patient treatment without asking someone first, and the idea of asking someone can be enough to make nervous addicts say, “Nevermind. This is too complicated.” More and more rehab facilities realize that insurance can seem like an insurmountable hurdle, and so they have a way for you to input your information on their website. So if you have United Healthcare, you can go to the facility’s website and find out if United Healthcare covers rehab costs. That allows you to get the information you need without having to pick up the phone and talk to someone.
Cosmetic procedures
It’s easy to scoff at people who get cosmetic surgery. They’re often derided as vain or shallow somehow, even if they’re actresses working in film or TV. Show business is a incredibly vain and shallow industry that occasionally requires weird things from the people it employs. But aside from that, there are some reasons where cosmetic surgery is needed for medical reasons. A deviated septum can be a perfectly valid medical reason for a rhinoplasty, commonly referred to as a nose job. There’s also a condition called Dermatochalasis in which droopy eyelids can make the people who have it look tired all the time. However, the excess eyelid skin can cause vision problems, which might mean that a blepharoplasty, or eye lift, is necessary. Health insurance companies will often cover cosmetic procedures if they’re deemed “medically necessary,” and sometimes their version of necessary won’t line up with the definition you or your eye doctor use. The best thing you can do when dealing with a condition that could go either way is to talk to your doctor. If they think an insurance company will approve the procedure as medically necessary, then it’s worth giving it a shot. If they don’t think so, then you have to ask yourself whether or not you’d be willing to pay for the procedure out-of-pocket.
