Posts Tagged ‘Blue Cross Blue Shield’

Workers Comp Denton / Workers Comp Dallas / Texas Workers Comp Doctors

Thursday, January 13th, 2011

The annual report on the total number of Texas work injuries was recently published and it showed another drop in the overall number of reported work injury claims for 2010.  This is the 4th consecutive year showing a reduction in Texas work injury claims.  Some would have us believe that this number is a good thing, and from the standpoint of fewer people getting injured I would certainly agree.  However, these numbers don’t necessarily tell the whole story.  Take the following points for example.

Point #1 – Unemployment.  When fewer people have jobs fewer people get hurt on the job.

Point #2 – Fear of Unemployment.  When so many people are already out of work, many others fear being out of work.  Lots of companies fire people after they are hurt on the job.  It’s not fair, but it’s a reality for many injured workers.

Point #3 – Reduction of Doctors who Treat Injured Workers.  Workers Compensation health care networks have drastically limited the number of qualified doctors who are allowed to treat many injured workers.  If employees have reduced access to qualified workers comp doctors, who will they report their injury to?  Not reporting an injury doesn’t mean that an injury never happened, but statistically, this will add to the supposed reduction in work injury claims.

Point #4 – Work Injuries that are Treated as Regular Health Insurance Claims.  Many people who are hurt at work will not only not report their injury, but they will see a doctor and say that they don’t know how the pain started.  They may get some treatment from their doctor, but it will be under their regular health insurance and not under Texas Workers Compensation.  Many health insurers are very good at allowing treatment for these kinds of injuries.  Blue Cross Blue Shield is one very good example of an insurance company that takes care of its customers.  The problem is that Texas Workers Comp provides injured workers with many rights that the injured worker must forgo by not filing a work injury claim, and by taking this route annual injury statistics appear lower than they really are.

Now clearly some of the reason for the reduced number of Texas work injury claims is due to things like better employer education on workplace safety, OSHA regulations, and other workplace safety initiatives.  Those points should not be overlooked.  The point I want to drive home is that these numbers are most certainly skewed and the reasons are very sad.  Unemployment, fear of unemployment, reduction of qualified Texas Workers Compensation doctors, filing on health insurance instead of workers comp insurance and anything else that might have an affect on the statistics.

WOLMED Texas workers compensation doctors want to help you when you’re hurt on the job.  We can’t stop unemployment, but we can help you with the fear of unemployment by helping you get the treatment you need and by taking steps to help protect your job.  And sure we accept Blue Cross Blue Shield health insurance and most other insurances, but we don’t want you to waive your rights under Texas Workers Compensation.  Instead, we want to help protect your rights.  Finally, while there is a reduction of qualified doctors who treat workers compensation, we still treat injured workers and we have no plans whatsoever to stop helping injured workers.  We want to be your doctor!

If you or someone you know what hurt at work, but aren’t exactly sure what to do about it, give us a call.  The Medical Doctors and Chiropractors at WOLMED can help you.  We are workers comp experts.  We’re open 7am to 8pm on week days and 7am to 4pm on Saturdays and we welcome same-day appointments.  Call us today in Denton and Dallas, TX.

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Posted in Workers Compensation | 1 Comment »

New Year’s Health Resolutions

Friday, January 7th, 2011

Every January, people start to make their new year’s resolutions.  What’s the #1 resolution?  To get in shape.  Join a gym.  Lose weight.  That’s a really great resolution.  I’ve been working out at gyms for over 10 years and I see the same things every year.  January rolls along and the gyms are full of people who are energized by their new year’s resolutions to get back in shape.  Then February comes, and some of them drop out.  March and April get here and half of them are gone.  By the summer time, the gyms are left with the people who are regulars, plus some new folks who decided to stick with it (but very few of those). 

Let’s all just face it.  Resolving to get in shape, join a gym, eat better, etc, is hard to do when there isn’t a total commitment for a life change to go with it.  Too many people view their health as a short-term project:  I just need to lose 10 pounds.  I want to get ready for the summer time.  I want to fit back into those clothes I bought last July.  Those goals are perfectly fine, but the bigger picture should give each one us the screaming motivation to get to it and stick to it and to make the serious lifestyle changes that will keep us healthy in our later years.

A person’s waist size is important, but not as much for how it relates to fitting into a pair of jeans.  The more important concern for waist size is its affect on overall health.  A lot of people don’t think about how that relates to things like diabetes, heart disease, and low testosterone (just to name a few).  And sure, being thin may look good, but what about the fact that being overwheight is a factor in heart disease?  Eating healthy will certainly help you take off some needed pounds, but it also will help to lower your bad cholesterol which can lead to very serious health problems.

Younger people especially have their blinders on when it comes to their health.  They’re gong to live forever and they’re invensible.  They don’t need to worry about that stuff and the way they fit into their clothes is the most important reason for them to be in shape.  But then a funny thing happens.  They hit their 30′s and then their 40′s.  Then they have to start facing the reality that being healthy is so much more important than just the way they look in the mirror.  Lots of younger people have never had any blood work done at a doctor’s office.  They don’t know if their cholesterol is high.  They hit their 30′s and notice that they are feeling more and more fatigued each day, but they’re doing the same things they’ve always done.  Men start hearing about how their testosterone starts to decrease in their 30′s, but they’ve never had that checked out.  What’s the point?  Get a check up!

Your health is so much more important than just the way you look in a mirror.  It’s important because you want to live a healthy life when you’re not as young as you once were.  When was the last time you saw the doctor for something other than a cold, alergies, or the flu?  When was the last time your medical doctor ran blood tests on you?  Most people don’t realize that they should get annual blood tests because they can catch things that you don’t even know could be a problem.  Once they become problems, you wish you would have known sooner.  When was the last time you had a complete physical?  Maybe that fatigue is a problem that a medical doctor can solve.  And how’s your heart?  Have you ever had an EKG?  Did you know that you can get that done in less than 10 minutes at a doctor’s office.

Listen, you don’t need to go see your medical doctor only when you feel sick.  That’s where so many people go wrong.  No – you should see your doctor when you feel well.  Get a full check-up by your medical doctor.  Ask for lab work.  Ask your doctor for a complete physical.  These “well” visits will prevent you from having more than your share of the sick visits.  So, if you’re going to make a new year’s resolution to get in shape, start by making an appointment with your medical doctor.  Don’t ignore your overall health and focus only on your outward appearance.  Those mistakes can lead to serious health problems down the road.

WOLMED Medical in Denton and Dallas have medical doctors who can help you with your well and sick visits.  We can do you lab work in house and help you get in the best shape of your life.  We accept most major insurances including Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas, Aetna, United Healthcare, PHCS, Cigna, and many  more.  We welcome same-day appointments and we can usually get your lab results back withing a couple of days.

Make your new year’s health resolution the right way.  See your doctor.  WOLMED Medical Doctors want to be your doctor too.

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Posted in Family Practice | No Comments »

Blue Cross Blue Shield and Texas Health Resources

Monday, December 6th, 2010

The December 3, 2010 issue of the Dallas Morning News had a very good article on this subject, written by Jason Roberson.  The article is titled, “Blue Cross Blue Shield, Texas Health Resources dispute may raise costs for Texas Patients”.  The current contract between Texas Health Resources and Blue Cross Blue Shield is up for renegotiation as is standard procedure in health care.  These contracts come up for renewal every year or so, giving doctors, hospitals, and insurance companies the opportunity to re-evaluate the contract’s effectiveness.  Does it help enough patients?  Does it cover the services that most patients need?  Do the doctors get paid enough for those services to be able to pay their overhead and continue helping patients?  Are the insurance companies losing or making money on a particular contract?  Is the particular doctor or hospital still a good fit for the network’s members based on current malpractice history, etc?  These contract negotiations are really very important to everyone, especially the patients.

If a doctor or hospital doesn’t get paid enough from an insurance carrier to cover its costs, they won’t be able to continue in the business of medicine to continue helping patients because they will slowly (or rapidly) go out of business.  On the other side, insurance carriers must make significant profit in order to continue providing insurance coverage over the long-term.  The unfortunate reality is that costs do rise and these rising costs do affect businesses, including medical businesses.

In today’s economic environment, consumers (patients) are right to be concerned over how these dilemmas will affect their health coverage.  Who’s going to cover the increase in costs?  Patients will eventually pay higher premiums because employer-sponsored plans are going to cost more to the employers.  So, employers will pay for the cost increase as well.  Some doctors are even going to pay for increases by either having their contracts terminated or reduced.  That move will cost patients the ability to see a doctor that they already know and trust.  Often, that is too high of a cost.

If Texas Health and BCBS don’t come to an agreement (and they probably will), patients with BCBS insurance will have to go to another hospital.  In Denton, that doesn’t seem like a very big deal since we also have Denton Regional Medical Center.  The problem is that even though DRMC is a fantastic hospital, the influx of new patients could cause lots of long wait times and it could stress the hospital’s current staffing situation making their normal excellent patient care more difficult to accomplish.  Patients that stay with Texas Health would have to pay more money out of pocket and who’s really going to want to do that?  Other patients will go to urgent care facilities like WOLMED and still others will avoid hospitals all together.

But really, I believe this deal’s too big to not get done and there will be too much public and political pressure to get a deal done.  The hospital wants one thing and Blue Cross Blue Shield wants another thing.  The deal is probably somewhere in the middle. 

For what it’s worth, WOLMED Medical is quite satisfied with its current Blue Cross Blue Shield contract.  We realized that rising costs do not necessarily have to put us in a bad position to operate.  So, we’ve taken necessary steps over the last 24+ months to lower our operating costs so that we can continue helping our many Blue Cross Blue Shield patients.  We’re not a hospital and our costs are surely no where near the level of a hospital, so I feel for those hospital administrators who have to balance high costs with payments that may not reach costs.  But the bottom line is that in a medical office, there are 2 ways to stay financially above water:  lower costs or get paid more.  I have more control over costs than I do over getting an insurance giant to pay us more.  So, cost control it is.

I feel like this enormous deal between Texas Health and Blue Cross Blue Shield will get done.  In the mean time, WOLMED Medical Doctors in Denton, TX are available to help you with your family medical needs.  We want to be your doctor too.

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Posted in Blue Cross Blue Shield | 16 Comments »

WOLMED Blue Cross Blue Shield Doctors in Denton, TX

Wednesday, December 1st, 2010

The Denton, TX Doctors at WOLMED Medical are Blue Cross Blue Shield doctors.  Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas is an excellent insurance PPO plan that is the group health insurance plan for employees at the University of North Texas.  UNT is the largest employer in Denton County, with an estimated 7,762 employees (according to the Denton County web site).  All of these employees have access to the University of North Texas Health Center, but then again, so do the 35,000+ students at UNT.

So, where do you go if you are a UNT employee and you need to see a doctor?  Why not WOLMED Medical?  Ed Wolski, MD and Robert Helsten, MD are available 6 days per week to help UNT employees with BCBS insurance.  Our Denton, TX medical doctors will accurately diagnose your illness with the use of our in-house lab, in-house x-ray, in-house EKG, along with any number of other medical devices at their immediate disposal.  Blue Cross Blue Shield health insurance covers almost all medical procedures you could need during a medical office visit.

So, when you need a Blue Cross Blue Shield Doctor in Denton, TX, call the medical doctors at WOLMED Medical.  We are open Monday thru Friday, from 7am to 8pm and Saturdays from 7am to 4pm.  Don’t wait in line at the health center.  Instead let the medical doctors at WOLMED help you today.  We welcome same-day appointments when you are sick.  We also very often have sample medications to get you started on until your prescription is ready at your pharmacy of choice.  We use electronic medical records, so we can very quickly send your prescriptions to the pharmacy to be filled.

UNT employees are fortunate to have an excellent insurance plan like Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas.  So, remember to choose WOLMED Medical when you are sick and need immediate medical attention.  The Denton, TX doctors of WOLMED welcome BCBS insurance and are ready to help you today.

Many of WOLMED’s employees are past and present students from the University of North Texas, including myself.  You can trust WOLMED Medical Doctors to take very good care of you and your family when you have family medical needs.  We want to be your Blue Cross Blue Shield doctor too.

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Posted in Blue Cross Blue Shield, Education, Family Practice | 10 Comments »