When it comes to medical procedures, it can be a stressful time in your life. After all, the impetus of any medical procedure is a medical problem, and medical problems can decrease your quality of life or result in death in severe cases.
However, even if that doesn’t get to you, what might get under your skin is the hoops you have to jump through in order to have your procedure.
Between medical insurance, bureaucracy, and travel, you’ve cut your work cut out for you just to get something cut out of you.
And, while I realize that joke was perhaps in poor taste, forgive me for fighting this sad state of affairs with humor, albeit gallows humor. However, there are a few small ways to beat this flawed system and get the help you need. Here are some tips.
First and foremost, travel expenses. If you’re in need of a procedure, you’ve probably accrued some costs with prior medical visits leading up to the surgery, so you could stand to cut some costs in this area. For starters, public transportation, while it may be inconvenient, to say the least, is incredibly affordable.
If that’s not your speed, the least you can do is rent a car from Enterprise, which may not be cheap, but at least you won’t have to fear your own car breaking down or driving it, no pun intended, to break down. Another option, should your insurance cover it, and I know from experience that Medicaid does, is to call for a ride from your hospital.
This is sort of like taking an ambulance, but owing to the non emergency, plan in advance nature of it, far cheaper and more relaxing. This method can even take care of transportation both ways, something that buses can’t always do for you.
