InsureHouston

11/09/2023

Learning about the census and its impact of federal dollars that come into Houston.

11/04/2023

Unlike health insurance for people under 65, Medicare Advantage companies profit off of denying care.

Don't let this happen to your family.

Corporations have turned Medicare Advantage into a money-making scheme, denying patients care to generate profits. For Megan Bent, it may have cost her fathe...

11/02/2023

I have a client who purchased her health insurance through her life insurance company for $118 a month.💩🧐

Then she was diagnosed with a potentially life-threatening condition.🤧🤒😵‍💫😵

You're going to want to see this.🫣🫣🫣

10/27/2023

Texas has the most uninsured people in the US, mainly because it has not expanded Medicaid under the ACA. This leaves many low-income working adults in the “coverage gap”, where they can’t get Medicaid or subsidies for private insurance. This hurts their health, finances, and the state’s economy.

Texas can solve this by expanding Medicaid, which would cover hundreds of thousands of Texans, bring federal funds, and lower health care costs for everyone. If you agree, please share this post and contact your state legislators to support Medicaid expansion. Thank you!

10/24/2023

Does you're health insurance require prior authorization?

If so you need to watch this video. You have options.

A health insurance whistleblower is exposing their most appalling practice. It’s called prior authorization — and it’s part of a money-making scheme based on...

10/23/2023

Warren Buffet, the seventh most wealthy person in the world 🌎 explains the two reasons we buy insurance… 🤔

Let’s take a look at these reasons in relation to health insurance. 🩺

Reason #1 - “To protect yourself against the loss that you are unable or unwilling to bear on their own…” 💸

This makes sense for cancer, heart attack, and stroke 😷 but I can’t tell you how many people use their insurance to pay for a $100 doctor visit as if this is what insurance is designed to do… 🙄

Is it because they are unable or unwilling to pay the $100 on their own? 🤷‍♂️

Are they just that bad with money 💰 that they’ll pay an insurance company $1,000’s of additional premiums for a single doctor visit? 🤦‍♂️

Or is it because the insurance industry has convinced people that their health insurance is the only way they can access their doctor? 🤥

Here’s how health insurance works financially for healthy people… 💯

If you don’t want to take responsibility for anything… you’ll be responsible for paying for everything. And the insurance company will charge you upfront through your premiums. 😱

It’s not uncommon that I see healthy people paying $1,000’s of dollars per doctor visit without even realizing it. 🩺

Which brings us to the other reason Warren Buffet said people buy insurance.

Reason #2 - “If you think the insurance company is actually selling your policy, that’s too cheap. So that you really expect to over a period of time, have a mathematical advantage by buying insurance. 🔢

Well, the most common type of health insurance in America is a form of stop-loss insurance. ⛔

That means if you are unhealthy there is a cap on how much you’ll pay before the insurance covers everything, 100% on an unlimited basis. 💯

This cap gives unhealthy people a huge mathematical advantage to buying health insurance… 🚀

This advantage is paid for by the people who pay a heavy price, because they’re not willing to take responsibility for their basic healthcare and finances. 😔

And the reason nobody ever tells you this is because insurance companies, agents, doctors, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies all make more money when we spend more money. 💵💵💵

10/23/2023

Radiologist Bills $4,453 for 5-Min of Work!! 😲

How to Spot and Fix Abusive Billing. 🕵️‍♂️

Abusive billing by healthcare providers is part of the larger issue of fraud, waste, and abuse (FWA) in medical claims for employee health plans. 🚨

The radiologist charged $4,453 for the 5-minute task of interpreting an MRI.

Eventually, the radiology office offered an 80% discount down to $891. 💸

This is still almost 8x the Medicare rate of $118. 😡

Upon further questioning, the radiology director of accounting said they had made a mistake going as far back as 2019 in charging so much and that they usually try to bill only 10x the Medicare rate… rather than 40x the Medicare rate! 🤥

The director of accounting said the reason they bill so much is because several of their insurance contracts still pay them a percentage of billed charges… Therefore, the more the radiology practice bills, the more money they make. 💰

The incorrect $4,453 is lower than the $5,000 to $10,000 threshold for most insurance carriers to audit a claim. 🕳️

So for over a year, this radiology practice has been paid handsomely for their mistake… at the expense of patients and employers like you. 😢

This Video Addresses Abusive Medical Billing by a Radiologist for Reading an MRI. Abuse is Part of the Larger Issue of Fraud, Waste and Abuse in Medical Cla...

10/23/2023

What is Money (Part 2)

The Five Forms of Money: Investments, Credit, Savings, Emergency Fund & Insurance

Investing is when you purchase assets with your money with the expectation that those assets will grow over time and can be sold or leveraged for a profit. This reduces your need for physical, mental, and emotional labor in the future.

Credit is borrowing against your future labor. This often includes the penalty of interest which means you'll need to perform additional physical, mental, and emotional labor (time, energy, and effort) to repay that debt.

Savings on the other hand is setting aside a portion of today’s labor in the form of money to use for future purchases or emergencies. Savings generally happens for two reasons.

The first is saving to spend. This is where you set aside some of today's labor to make tomorrow's purchases. This helps you avoid paying the penalty of interest by reducing your need for credit.

The second reason is saving to protect. We call this an emergency fund. This is money you put away for emergency purposes only.

Most financial advisors recommend you save 3 to 6 months' worth of living expenses and here's why: Your emergency fund not only protects your lifestyle but it can also protect your credit standing and lowers the cost of another type of savings that everyone should have called insurance.

Insurance is the fifth form of money. While insurance can be used as a high-yield, long-term savings account for retirement and legacy planning, it is most often used as a group emergency fund.

That's where a group of people can collectively store their labor in the form of money to pay for unexpected emergencies.

For instance, let's say that you and your spouse collectively make $66 an hour. And you purchased a $300,000 home. Depending on your interest rate, it will likely require 4 to 6 years of physical, mental, and emotional labor to pay for that home. That doesn't even include the items inside your home which can add additional years to that total.

But what if it burned down and you lost everything before you could pay it off?

You now have to figure out a way to pay off your home along with all of its contents while somehow coming up with the money to rebuild your home and replace everything in it.

In the meantime, you'll need to find a place to live while all this happens so your housing cost just doubled. And that's assuming everyone got out okay. If someone got injured in the fire you might be faced with hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills.

Those injuries might result in one or both of you not being able to work which means no more labor and no more money.

This is where insurance comes in: Instead of trying to save for that scenario before you buy a home or putting your family at risk if the unthinkable happens, insurance works like a group emergency fund where you can pay for your portion of the risk.

In this scenario, let’s assume it’s $225 a month. If the unthinkable were to happen, instead of setting yourself back an additional 4 to 6 years or more, you have an alternative. You can pool your labor, contributing $225 a month, with like-minded individuals who share a similar level of risk. If any of you encounter this scenario, the insurance company can combine those checks to help that person avoid a financial disaster.

In essence, everyone comes together with their physical, mental, and emotional labor to rebuild that home and provide that person with a place to stay while replacing the items they lost.

That is the essence of insurance. It’s not different from what would happen in the past when the community combined efforts to help someone in need. The only difference is we now do it with money.

10/23/2023

What is Money? (Part 1)

The Federal Reserve of Chicago defines money in its document entitled "Modern Money Mechanics" as a tool to facilitate the exchange of goods and services.

Let me simplify that so it's easier to understand.

If you are a real estate agent, you wouldn't want to sell a home to someone who works at your local grocery store every time you need groceries. If you did would likely starve. Instead, you can sell homes to other people and use your commission, in the form of money to buy groceries when you need them.

Money is simply a tool that helps us exchange our physical, mental, and emotional labor (time, energy, and effort) for the products and services that we need.

For most Americans, this comes as a wage or salary. According to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, the average wage at the beginning of 2023 is $33 an hour. But what does that really mean?

It means that your $5 Starbucks coffee represents 10 minutes of your labor. If you stop 5 times a week for a $5 Starbucks coffee, it will cost you 43 hours of physical, mental, and emotional labor (time, energy, and effort) this year.

That's an entire week of work to pay for coffee. If we view our purchases from this perspective we tend to make better buying decisions.

10/20/2023

Effective altruism is a philosophy and a community that aims to use evidence and reason to figure out how to benefit others as much as possible, and take action on that basis.

One way we can practice effective altruism is by making better choices when it comes to our insurance.

Insurance is a vital and valuable service that can protect you, your loved ones, and the community as a whole from unexpected financial loss, such as accidents, illnesses, natural disasters, or lawsuits.

Choosing the right plan can lower your premiums, reduce your deductibles, and ensure you get the coverage you need. It can also free up more of your resources to grow your own wealth.

As an effective altruism, this money can be donated to charities or various causes that can make a positive difference in the world.

By making better insurance choices, you can not only improve your own financial well-being, but also contribute to the financial well-being of others within our community. That's what effective altruism is all about.

Effective altruism isn’t just for the rich. Philosopher Peter Singer shares how we can all be better at doing “good.”Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ► http...

10/19/2023

At a time of record inflation, many employees will see little to no wage increase due to increased benefit cost.

Here's some of the key points from a recent CNN article talking about the increase in health insurance premiums this year.

- The annual cost of family health insurance coverage at work soared to an average of nearly $24,000 this year¹.

- This is up 7% from last year¹.

- Employees are shelling out an average of $6,575 for their share of the premium, up almost $500, or close to 8%, from last year¹.

- For single coverage, the average annual premium rose to $8,435, also up 7% from last year¹.

- Workers are picking up just over $1,400 of the tab, about $75 more than last year¹.

- The tight job market has prompted companies to avoid watering down their health insurance coverage since it can be a recruiting and retention tool¹.

- Deductibles remained essentially flat this year, which may reflect employers’ concerns about how much workers have to shell out when they need medical care¹.

- The average annual deductible is roughly $1,735 among workers who have a deductible for single coverage¹.

- Nearly a quarter of companies said they will increase employees’ premium contributions in the next two years¹.

- Workers at smaller firms typically pay much more for coverage than their peers at companies with at least 200 workers¹.

Workers and their employers are paying a lot more for job-based health insurance this year.

10/16/2023

When I was growing up, my mom told me money doesn’t grow on trees… Your parents probably told you the same.

So why as adults would we think this is true of insurance.

In insurance, you are going to...

1) Spend your money…
2) Spend the community money and if that money runs out…
3) Spend the insurance companies’ money.

The reality is we rarely spend the insurance companies' money.

And even if we do, they will find a way to claw that money back and a whole lot more.

The best way to protect yourself against insurance rate increases, due to the reckless spending of others, is to find policies that discourage this misconception.