How to Be a Savvy Health Care Consumer

Health care today is an ever more complex challenge for the average consumer. Most of us have finally gotten past the idea that doctors are incarnate dieties whose very presence is awe inspiring, but that shift came with the staggering responsibility of needing to have some idea of what is going on with our own health care. Sadly, it really was easier when the answer was "Okay, Doc! Whatever you say!"

Having awakened to the reality that doctors are made of the same cellular structure we are, and their brains weigh no more than ours, we must now learn how to discern whether we are being cared for with skill and with a reasonable degree of courtesy. How does one do this with little or no medical training? How are we to know if a treatment plan makes sense or not? And how, when one is finally convinced they would receive better care with another physician, does one go about firing one of these recent dieties?

Indeed, we have taken on a much larger responsibility for our personal health care. Gone are the days when our biggest contribution to our own care was to get ourselves to the doctor, and let him or her take it from there. Luckily, there is a world of information now available to the health consumer. The internet, thousand of personal health care books - even health care workers who take phone calls to help sort out your illness, your treatment and what the big picture looks like. So much information, it is easy to become overwhelmed, and beg to return to the days of just letting the doctor handle everything. Don't. You really can do this.

Last year, my brother was seeing a doctor for troubling arthritis, and was taking a prescription medication for that ailment. After being on the medication a while, he had his annual physical exam, and labs indicated some abnormalities in his liver studies as well as borderline concerns with his blood sugars. He was told he had "fatty liver" and that he was to take no acetaminophen (i.e. Tylenol), no alcohol and loose some weight. He was a good boy, followed all directions and returned three months later for follow up, having lost twenty pounds.