My Medical Hacks
Automate the Stupid Admin of Personal Health
Medical admin is broken. Broken. As if having to nurse a painful, chronic or degenerative condition isn’t enough, the administrative friction can sink you.
HIPAA is outdated, so we fax medical records from 1986. We login to five different secure “portals” for our test results (if they are digitized at all). We wait on the phone to schedule appointments. We’re sent obscure “Explanations of Benefits” from insurance companies that only machines can decipher — in the mail.
It’s easier to schedule a kitchen remodel, adopt a pet or send money to a developing country than it is to manage the admin of a relatively straightforward outpatient surgery.
Disclaimers: Not a Doctor, Also Mad Privileged
I’m not a medical professional, merely a patient.
Fortunately for me, I’ve been able structure my life in a way that accommodates my health. Hoping y’all can learn from the shortcuts I’ve found that I have access to.
Here’s how you can deal with the time-sucking vagaries of the medical system to save time and money.
Find a Critical Mass of Experts
Large hospitals or university medical centers (e.g. Northwestern, Cornell Weill, or University of Iowa) will have many, if not all, of the specialists you need and they usually share an instance of medical record software.
That means everyone on your “care team” — all the PAs, the nurses, the primary care folks — can see each other’s test results, prescriptions and visit history. They can easily compare test results over time to catch any inconsistencies in your bod. You never have to transfer records, and might even be able to schedule specialist appointments when you’re done with a GP visit.
Delegate: Use Your Employee Advocate
If you’re employed with health insurance (lucky you!), you likely have an “Employee Advocate” through operations or HR. After signing a HIPAA waiver, this person can liaise with the insurance company on your behalf.
Error on your bill? Don’t understand your EOB? Need a prior auth from your GP? Does a bill say “Past Due” but you paid it? Email all your baggage to this person; they will make it go away. They are magic.
Librarians + the Cloud
I hire a medical librarian to upload, organize, tag and structure my medical records. This took about an hour to find someone in my network, and 2–3 times a year I send her PDFs. All those files are stored on a secure server.
You can find a medical librarian on Odesk or Elance and they cost between $20–50 an hour.
Now whenever I see a new doctor or wonder if I’ve had an immunization, I have access to those records in 30 seconds.
Automate: Make the Pills Come to You
Ever wonder why you feel like shit, and then remember you forgot to refill your prescriptions like, a month ago? Yeah… me neither.
Anticipate your own shortcomings by using a mail-order prescription service so the stuff comes to your doorstep. Usually you’ll get a 90-day supply that auto-refills. This has saved me countless trips to the pharmacy. Highly recommend.
Get Your $$ Back
Use budgeting software like Mint.com to categorize your pharmacy, dental, and doctor expenses — copays, prescriptions, x-rays, everything. I do this categorization by firing up the mobile app when I’m waiting in line or for the subway.
If those costs add up to more than 7.5% of your gross adjusted income, you can write them off.
At the end of the year, you can export a .csv from Mint to grab the final total to claim for Uncle Sam. Takes 5 minutes
Small Hacks Add Up
While none of these pointers are rocket surgery, they give me a sense of control over my health — something that is for the most part out of our hands.
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