How To Get Your Health Insurer To Pay Up, Alicia Brooks Waltman, Natural Health
Slowly but surely, insurers are beginning to cover alternative health care treatments. Fifty-seven percent of HMOs include chiropractors in their networks, and acupuncture is gaining acceptance from many major providers. But, insurance companies are still watching the bottom line, writes Alicia Brooks Waltman in Natural Health. "If you want them to help pay for your alternative therapies," she writes, "you may be in for an uphill fight." It may be difficult, but Waltman offers a few tips to help out. Number one on her list? Tenacity. "If you write them enough times, if you harass and annoy and bother them long enough, they will respond," says one patient. "They have to get the feeling that you are a mad dog attached to their neck that's not letting go." Waltman also encourages patients to "stand on tall shoulders"--if you have health coverage through your job, have your benefits manager advocate for you; "know the law," which differs on a state-by-state basis; and exercise your option to "shop around."
--Anjula Razdan
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