The Complete Idiot's Guide to Managed Health Care (Complete Idiot's Guides)
by Sophie M. Korczyk, Hazel A. Witte
Consumers'
Guide to Health Plans
by Editors of Consumers' Checkbook Magazine
"Choosing the right health plan can make a big difference for your health, for the convenience and pleasantness of the service you get, and for your health care costs.
"The best plans sign up good doctors and hospitals. They help their doctors give good care through training and information programs, reminder systems for following up with patients, and other kinds of support.
They continually measure how well the doctors and their patients are doing.
"The worst plans put obstacles in the way of good care at every turn. They contract only with lower quality doctors and hospitals. They make it hard to get referrals to specialists. They delay or deny approvals for needed tests, treatments, and drugs. And they wear you down with arbitrary rules, bureaucratic hassles, unresponsive staff,
and pointless paperwork.
"Fortunately,
there are many good plans, and many of these are among the more reasonable in cost. This book will steer you to them - with ratings of 385 plans throughout the U.S.
"You will see that, in Consumers' Checkbook's survey of nearly 20,000 physicians who have participated in the plans, some plans were rated favorably for the quality of their patient care by more than 80 percent of the physicians who rated them; other plans got favorable ratings from fewer than 30 percent of their physicians.
"You will see significant differences in how plans were rated by their patients,
in a survey of more than 200,000 patients. And you will see that some plans do much better than others on direct measures of patient care, such as, giving the proper medications to patients after a heart attack.
"What's more, you will learn how to choose a relatively low-cost plan. And you will learn how to get the best possible care through whatever plan you choose.
"This book is the best available guide for individuals and families of all sizes and all ages, young and old, including Medicare beneficiaries."
Death by HMO: The Jennifer Gigliello Story
by Dorothy Rose Cancilla, Richard N. Cote
From Booklist
"There are those who praise HMOs for cutting medical costs,
overlooking the presumption that HMOs are taking care of individual patients. Cancilla's as-told-to story about her daughter, Jennifer,
alerts us to some major possible dangers of HMOs. She details the eight years of Jennifer's downward-spiraling health and treatment--or lack thereof--including six major operations (the most difficult was terribly botched by a nonspecialist surgeon) and many hospitalizations..."
William Beatty
Don't Let Your HMO Kill You: How to Wake Up Your Doctor, Take Control of Your Health, and Make Managed Care Work for You
by Jason, Dr Theodosakis, David T. Feinberg
Fight Back and Win: How to Get Hmo's and Health Insurance to Pay Up
by William M. Shernoff
"The health care system in this country is broke; and more than ever, the evidence supports the contention that managed health care providers care more about healthy profits than healthy people.
FIGHT BACK AND WIN is a practical how-to for all those Americans who worry that their heath care coverage won't be there when they need it. Chapters include:
How to Get Your HMO to Pay Up
Bothersome HMO Traps to Watch Out For
Practical Tips to Follow so that You Don't End Up in an HMO Dispute
Legal Tips to Follow if Your Claim Is Denied
How Ordinary People Fought HMOs. . .and Won
Answers to the 9 Most Commonly Asked Coverage Questions
The Awful ERISA Scandal
Sample Letter to Your Member of Congress
Insurance Traps that Can Effectively Cancel Your Coverage
What Your Insurance Company Won't Tell You
What to Do if an Insurance Company Tries to Rescind Your Policy and more."
Hassle-Free Health Coverage: How to Buy the Right Medical Insurance Cheaply and Effectively (How to Insure Series)
by The Silver Lake Editors (Editor)
From Kirkus Reviews
"Clear and simple, an invaluable primer on health insurance.
The Silver Lake editors aim to educate consumers on all types of insurance, and health insurance is surely among the most baffling.
Furthermore, as the authors point out, a result of changing employer/employee relations has been a change in how people get or don't get health insurance. Readers must be prepared to understand options and make informed choices. With the help provided here, this is not an impossible task..." -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Making a Killing: Hmos and the Threat to Your Health
by Jamie Court (Editor), Francis Smith
Making Them Pay: How to Get the Most from Health Insurance and Managed Care
by Rhonda D. Orin
"Most people don't understand health insurance, and insurance companies know it. Unfair denials, late payments and hopeless confusion are the norm. At last, there is a solution. In eight easy steps,
Making Them Pay gives practical advice about the things that drive people crazy. Like:
- Figuring out what health plans really say
- Understanding what benefits they provide
- Finding,
and understanding, the exclusions
- Determining what health plans really cost
- How to talk to customer service, and other painful details
- Easy ways to keep good records
- Laws that can change your life - like the mandatory-benefits laws in all 50 states
- How to prepare successful appeals
"Along with this useful advice, Making Them Pay offers a much-needed sense of humor. It's filled with cartoons, sidebars and vignettes that will make you laugh as you learn. Based on Rhonda Orin's extensive experience as a litigator, a journalist and a mother fighting her own family's insurance battles, Making Them Pay is the book your health insurer doesn't want you to read."
The Medical Bill Survival Guide: What You Need to Know Before You Pay a Dime
by Pat Palmer, Martha Ellis (Contributor), Christopher Slone (Contributor)
Also See 
Books: Medicaid and Medicare
Also See
Books: Consumer Help for Insurance Issues
