Perfect. Add it to the list of unending financial shocks that haunt our healthcare system. The predictable medical problems of aging are enough of a burden without the profound weight of the escalating cost of healthcare. These punitive and painful increases of pricing include the cost of healthcare insurance, ever expanding copays, other worldly fees for testing and procedures, “out of network” providers and medications.
Now this: “Prior Authorization” doesn’t mean the insurer will actually pay the bill. What?
Yes. Read this sobering article from Kaiser Health News: Patients Stuck With Bills After Insurers Don’’t Pay As Promised
For an aging society with a massive population over 60 saddled with the dual burden of obesity and diabetes, it will mean that the oldest three generations could spending every last dollar on healthcare. For the adult children caught up is this financial undertow, the cost of keeping their aging parent’s afloat will come at the price of having their aging in plan put in jeopardy. This is not the ending we imagined but it appears that it’s the one we can’t avoid…