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What Is Telemental Health: Benefits, Privacy and Pitfalls

What Is Telemental Health? The National Institute of Mental Health defines telemental health as “the use of telecommunications or videoconferencing technology to provide mental health services.” Telebehavioral healthcare refers to the process of observing behavior in a subject through online technologies. Telebehavioral health is considered a subgroup of telemental health. The US Department of Health and Human Services says online visits are a convenient way for mental and behavioral health providers to offer: One-on-one and group therapy Substance abuse counseling medication management Monitoring for anxiety and depression Mental health screening Telemental health services enable clinicians to reach more patients, such…
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What Happens When You Don’t Fund Your Trust?

After you work with your estate planning attorney to draft a carefully tailored estate plan, it is usually your responsibility to “fund” the trust. We can help you stay on top of the latest news that affects your everyday life. Subscribe to stay up to date. (To subscribe to our blog click here). What does funding the trust mean? Funding the trust is simply transferring assets into your trust. If you have a trust, you will want to put your assets into the trust, by retitling bank accounts, re-designating beneficiaries of life insurance, etc. We walk our clients through the…
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A Conservative Blueprint for Universal Healthcare

I recently read “A Republican Argument for Affordable Universal Healthcare” in MedPage Today. While it is pleasing to see that some Republicans agree that universal healthcare is a laudable goal, it is disconcerting that conservative policymakers still lack a clear vision and framework for how to achieve that ideal. Fortunately, the conservative principles of private industry, personal responsibility, and limited government can be applied to health insurance. Reformers in other countries such as Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Singapore have provided clear examples of how to achieve, what I would consider to be, a Republican vision of a universal healthcare…
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Buying health insurance for your next foreign trip: Don’t fall victim to the fine print

A Saskatchewan man’s nightmarish trip to the United States is a cautionary tale for those who travel outside of Canada. If you are taking a trip soon, experts say, now is the time to look into purchasing travel health insurance and, they emphasize, read the fine print before you buy. When Louis Lamothe, 72, from Halbrite, Sask., suffered a stroke while vacationing in Arizona, his family got another dose of bad news: Their insurance claim had been denied and they would be on the hook for the $56,000 flight home, as well as other hundreds of thousands of dollars in…
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Physicians Say Health Insurer Prior Authorization Is Rising And So Are Care Delays

The American Medical Association, which is pushing in Washington for health insurance reforms of … [+] prior authorization, released March 13, 2023 a new survey of 1,000 practicing physicians showing such requirements lead to “to unnecessary waste and avoidable patient harm.” getty Physician complaints about prior authorization – the vehicle that requires them to get approval from a health insurer before performing a procedure – is on the rise along with treatment delays that could harm patient health outcomes. The complaints come as physicians generally have less autonomy than they are used to and doctors are worried about the increasing…
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Opinions | Fixing Health Care Starts With the Already Insured

There is no shortage of proposals for health insurance reform, and they all miss the point. They invariably focus on the nearly 30 million Americans who lack insurance at any given time. But the coverage for the many more Americans who are fortunate enough to have insurance is deeply flawed. Health insurance is supposed to provide financial protection against the medical costs of poor health. Yet many insured people still face the risk of enormous medical bills for their “covered” care. A team of researchers estimated that as of mid-2020, collections agencies held $140 billion in unpaid medical bills, reflecting…
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30,000 people will lose health insurance next month as Colorado shuts down Friday Health Plans. Here’s what’s next.

Friday Health Plans started in Colorado in 2015 with hopes of revolutionizing the health insurance market. Nearly a decade later, the company has imploded, leaving tens of thousands of people scrambling to find new health insurance in Colorado and beyond. State regulators in Colorado are moving to “liquidate” the company, meaning its assets will be divided up and the business closed. As a result, all of Friday Health’s plans in Colorado will end on Aug. 31 — affecting roughly 30,000 customers here. The company was already set to close, seeming to collapse after an over-aggressive expansion. But state regulators decided…
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Exclusion of migrant farm workers from public health insurance puts Nova Scotia agriculture at risk, advocates say

Isabel InclanSpecial to Saltwire Network Amidst the worsening labor crunch in Nova Scotia’s agriculture sector, the government’s exclusion of many migrant workers from public health insurance potentially puts more than 1,600 farm workers and the agri-food supply at risk, advocates warn. Migrant advocates say that the provincial government’s “deliberate policy” excludes migrant workers from public health insurance, leaving them vulnerable. Unlike provinces such as Ontario or Quebec, where migrants in the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program are covered by public health upon arrival, farm workers in Nova Scotia must wait 12 months to be covered by the province’s Medical Services Insurance…