Healthcanc

It isn’t easy navigating healthcare today, finding the providers you know and love in a new network. You want to continue with your therapist, but when you thumb through the lists of mental health providers, no surprise, she's not there. It hasn't been easy for those of us on the provider side, either. When the Affordable Care Act passed, we knew that we would be denied claims from these seemingly wonderful, spanking new, mega-cheap health care plans, especially the ones offered by the big companies-- United Health Care, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Aetna, Humana. Some of us didn't want any part them. We told our patients: Before you sign up, do some research . .  if you want to keep this thing we have, going. We had no idea (still don't) whether or not insurance would pay us for services rendered. Then it began to happen with regularity, and it continues to this day. An established patient would give us a choice:  Do you take this insurance? Or this one?  Then she would exp

It was an afterthought.  I was writing about dysfunctional obsessive behaviors: drinking, drugging, gambling, sex, over-eating, and watching way too many baseball games on television. Chicago Cubs WIN Flag T he usual coping strategies. And I added, as an afterthought, I considered, just for a moment, prayer.  But stopped right there. Because, can we really pray too much? This is the time of year that Jews pray for the welfare of the entire world.  Our attention, highly introspective, drilled into us by parents, teachers. God is thought to be closer, He , She's  sweating the details, paying attention, trying to see who's been naughty or nice. Santa, sorry, is a total steal. In the synagogue daily, for the past month, or maybe at home, if you live with a musician, the blow of the ram's horn, the shofar , is a wake up call. Wake up! Think about what you really value, think about the important things. Pray for what matters, strive for better, reach to be a better person, extend