<p>Surgery is not fun, we have several people in the office, some are better than other afterwards, it all depend on many factors. Recovery is definitely very long, hip seems to be much more than a knee, “hip” kind seem to never stop limping. I hope that I do not need to deal with this, enough is going on in my mouth, just got another implant last week, #6. My dentist said that nothing can beat really bad genes, he is right, the granddaughter is in the same predicament, no implants yet, but by my age, I do not know. I was way too diligent, endured way more than average person would, not many will be up to that at all.<br>
All other pains, I just deal with them. My solution - swim them off. It may work for awhile, then it will not work, but again, with my genes I might not live to experience that.</p>
<p>Steve, it sure doesn’t seem like we are saving money!</p>
<p>On our old plan, the weekly payroll deduction was higher. But office visits were a flat copay per visit, and we were not billed for lab fees, etc. Any money in the HSA went toward dental copays and eyeglasses.</p>
<p>And the cost of the plan has gone up every year…</p>
<p>I suppose the two years we’ve had the plan, we were disadvantaged in needing enough medical care to pay thousands in deductibles, but not getting past the deductible.</p>
<p>So I suppose it’s good that my H hobbled around for a few months and the surgery is pushed to early next year rather than the end of this year.</p>
<p>And we are blessed with the bad teeth genes as well. Major dental bills every year. My youngest has extreme dental anxiety and needs to be anesthetized for anything more than a cleaning. That is an additional $900 out of pocket every time.</p>
<p>martina99–if you had a co-pay plan you did not have an HSA–you had an FSA–the kind where if you didn’t use the money you lost it. An HSA you keep the money forever if you don’t use it. Add up what you are saving in premiums compared to a co-pay plan and the tax savings and you will see where you are saving money. If you are saving say $200/pay period–which is about average between a co-pa plan and a CDHD plan, that is over $2000/year. Again, even on your co-pay plan, if your DH has surgery, you would be paying out of pocket for deductibles and co-insurance. Everyone’s insurance goes up each year, just like the cost of milk goes up each year.</p>
<p>Your dental costs are separate from your medical costs and have nothing to do with your medical plan, except that you can use both your HSA and a limited purpose FSA if you have one to cover those costs. </p>
<p>We are delaying DD’s surgery until after the first of the year too :D.</p>
<p>A lot of activity on this thread. Deadline is today and I hope that the servers aren’t too slow. Son’s deadline was today too. I looked over his selections and just told him that his selections are fine. We have another month to decide on retirement stuff. He has a big chunk of cash now and he needs to think about investments and retirement funds. His employer is switching over to Fidelity which I think is great - and they have a self-directed brokerage but it only allows mutual funds (3200 of them). It would be great if he could do individual stocks, ETFs and bonds too. He didn’t have literature on the retirement options - that’s available in his web account so he’ll have to look it over and get back to me.</p>
<p>Most of the people at work are going with the HMO option. No deductibles and basically the same as the PPO. It will cost $600 more but it will essentially be the same as what I had this year. The HMO uses providers in our regular EPO/PPO choices so there shouldn’t be any difference in providers. Other employees think that they will get rid of this option next year because it seems too generous. I’ll think about the higher-deductible stuff next year. Hopefully there will be some employees around that pick it this year so we can ask them what they think about it for next year.</p>
<p>I’m glad that I went with comprehensive dental this year (it’s a few more bucks biweekly but doubles the benefits). I had a root canal yesterday and insurance covered about 80%. My son used up almost half of my benefits at the beginning of this year for a crown. This was just before he got a job with great dental benefits! I wish I could use some of his! I have a second appointment on the root canal and will then need a crown over it. I’m probably going to try to get it done this year as I like to get teeth stuff done as soon as possible. It would probably be better to have it done early January - might save $800. We’ll see how it goes.</p>
<p>It’s time for us to choose insurance plans- H had made noises about changing his job classification so that he would be in another union ( & make more money), but balked when he found out he would be working with wet materials instead of dry. Which is kinda sad as it would be a “lot” more money.
Each union has a different contract with company, so naturopathic providers for instance are covered with the other unions contract, but not with his.</p>
<p>They’ve increased deductibles for all- which is done routinely so no surprise, but one PITA with our contract is that none of the insurance companies pay Drs much, so some complain about it to the patients. ( yes - I see the irony- they apparently don’t)<br>
The biggest PITA is that we aren’t supposed to need a referral to see a specialist, but the providers require it even though many of them have access to the same records on the computer, and some specialists apparently only want the most interesting cases so my primary doc ( in this case my naturopath - as my primary doc tries to handle everything herself) has to take time highlighting features of my case to draw them in. </p>
<p>Recovery is definitely very long, hip seems to be much more than a knee, “hip” kind seem to never stop limping.</p>
<p>Hip replacement patients seem to be less active than knee replacement patients. Which is my Dr. reason to delay surgery- he thinks I will wear it out too fast. Well, I sure am not active now. :(</p>
<p>Actually Miamidap, the hip joint is a simple ball & socket- one of the strongest in the body, technically you could carve it out of wood.
The knee joint is much more prone to injury, and is a pivoting hinge joint- like the elbow only the knee is weight bearing.</p>
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<p>BC - we pushed a crown for my H and a dental appointment for youngest D until Jan, more so we’ll have the FSA funds (thanks Steve!) to cover the deductible.</p>
<p>Steve- I still think we are paying way more after the change, but I suppose we were spoiled with good coverage previously. We did not pay for anything beyond the office visit copay and the drug copay. And I know medical and dental are separate, it’s just we never had to use our FSA to cover medical bills before. Now we plan ahead and put off whatever we can.</p>
<p>BCEagle91–your dental benefits should be per person on your plan…</p>
<p>martina99–but if you didn’t pay beyond the office visit you didn’t have services that went into your deductible. If you had an MRI or similar you would have gotten a bill for $1000 because that would not have been covered under your office visit co-pay. That is the part you are missing. Also, be aware that you can only put $2500 in your FSA in 2013.</p>
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<p>If it is, then I won’t have to pay $1K for the upcoming crown - maybe $200. We’ll find out soon I hope.</p>
<p>Steve, on our previous plan we were never billed for anything beyond a copay.</p>
<p>This included X rays, lab tests, cardiac tests, etc.</p>
<p>martina99–were you on an HMO then?</p>
<p>Just did the update and I’m happy to be done with it. While making the changes, I updated the beneficiary allocations. I’m giving less to our son than to our daughter for one of the allocations because he’s working and has savings. Do others do this too or do you do equal allocations for your kids?</p>
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kkmama - Do you know that the FSA limit is decreasing to a max of $2500 thanks to Obamacare? Plan as best you can accordingly.</p>
<p>After losing money after putting it in an acct., I pay for everything post tax.
Which adds up to more than the Dr bill, or even the lab bill. For the past twenty years - depending on the clinic, it also includes the facility fee.</p>
<p>[Why</a> you might pay twice for one visit to doctor | Local News | The Seattle Times](<a href=“http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2019600338_facilityfees04m.html?prmid=head_main]Why”>http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2019600338_facilityfees04m.html?prmid=head_main)</p>
<p>Major reason why I didnt go to the top private hospital for my last pregnancy. ^^ Since my first pregnancy was very high risk,( bedrest at 16 weeks, delivery at 30) I tried to be proactive and consult with a OB, before I got pregnant. I spoke with one Dr for about three minutes at a private clinic, and had a full annual exam from the chief of staff of the university hospital.
My bill from the private physician was about $100, but the bill from the hospital was over $150. It hadnt even occured to me that the hospital would bill me, since you didnt enter the hospital to enter the clinic. ( My bill for the exam was about $70- all inclusive from the university hospital)
The Dr waived his fee, when I complained, but the private hospital would not.
Id love to see more transparent billing practices more equitably distributed.</p>
<p>emeraldkity4–facility fees :D. This is one reason we switched DD to a different specialist. Her specialist was technically employed by the hospital so every visit there was a facility fee and the dr’s charges. We never stepped foot in the hospital for her visits–it was across the street from the clinic.</p>
<p>GladGradDad–“Obamacare” changed the FSA in order to provide better tax savings with the HSA. Nationally less than 5% of health plan users that have an FSA available to them use the FSA. They also changed what you can use your FSA dollars on, which is really why it changed. Too many people were running to Walmart on Dec 31st to buy up NyQuill and bandaids, not really what the plan is for.</p>
<p>^^ Count me in the 95%. I tried the FSA one year but I didn’t like the ridiculous idea of ‘use it or lose it’ and the corresponding need to be very careful about how much to put in it so as not to lose it. However, I know some people have fairly predictable health care needs where the FSA made sense but now they’ve received a subtle tax increase due to the lower limit for using pre-tax dollars for the FSA.</p>
<p>Yup, I know the reduction in the 2012 FSA. If my husband gets another pastorate, he will get an FSA.</p>
<p>And Obamacare gave my kid a $44K education grant, so I’ll gladly take a $2,500 cut in my FSA!!</p>
<p>Steve, yes, I believe it was an HMO. We are in MA and it was administered through Harvard Pilgrim. </p>
<p>I believe what we have now is a PPO (company funded) administered by Cigna, and it is affiliated with Caremark (I guess that includes additional physicians groups and hospitals)</p>
<p>I am learning a lot about insurance in this thread. I never had to think much about it previously, but now that we are taking a beating on additional costs, I am trying to get up to speed. </p>
<p>Anecdotally , it seems that people at work whose spouse’s jobs offer insurance choose their spouse’s insurance over our company offering.</p>
<p>Re FSA’ s - with our old healthcare plan we would just put in a smallish amount to cover dental, eyeglasses, and copays. </p>
<p>Now we are maxing out our contribution to help toward all the bills that come in on our current plan. I do wonder, however, how advantageous this is tax-wise.</p>