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Is your local supermarket making you unhealthy? Can your neighbors raise your healthcare costs? When it comes to your healthcare costs, it’s easy to focus on things like insurance premiums, prescriptions and doctor bills. But what about other less obvious factors? |
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The common denominator: you
In part, your healthcare costs depend on a very complex organism: you. In general, the sicker you are, the higher your costs. But the things that make you ill can include everything from genetics to the company you keep, from the quality of the air you breathe to your local supermarket.1 Seeing your health — and healthcare costs — in the larger context of your life is crucial to controlling your future expenses.
Home is where the cost is
Where you live can profoundly influence how much you’ll pay for things like groceries, real estate and medical care. Costs can swing wildly between locations — often thousands of dollars’ difference for the same procedure.
In rural areas, costs can skyrocket because of a lack of competition or access. Waste and inefficiency fatten costs in other areas. The demographics of the local population have a dramatic effect on costs for everyone in the community. Are they sick? Poor? Healthy?2
How the local medical community sees its role — and does business — are important influences on cost. Are doctors rewarded for providing more care than necessary?3 Do patients demand expensive, perhaps unnecessary, care? Both of these variables affect overall costs.
Comparing procedure costs at local facilities is a good place to start controlling costs. Tools on the National Institutes of Health website allow you to compare average procedure costs at different hospitals and facilities. Keep in mind that these are average costs; insurance discounts, copays, coinsurance, deductibles and quality of care are not taken into account. Additionally, many insurance carriers have cost and quality comparison tools on their websites.
Environmental factors
We all know that living a healthy lifestyle can reduce our overall healthcare costs. But choosing to live healthy is about more than just willpower. It’s also about access. Studies show that neighborhoods with limited access to healthy foods in supermarkets and a high number of convenience stores and fast-food joints had the unhealthiest populations. While many such studies focus on poor urban neighborhoods, many of the same findings also hold for rural communities.4
Other environmental factors also impact your health, including whether you have a hectic commute, your town’s air quality, population density, your educational background, support network, stress management skills, your income, whether you get preventive screenings, and the list goes on.
The key to an effective healthcare cost control strategy for your family is to be comprehensive. You’ll want to include elements like choosing the right health insurance plan, making lifestyle changes to improve your health, and taking into account where you live, work and play. Taking a big-picture approach can help keep your focus on your overall health — and your bottom line.
1Jeneen Interlandi, “It’s Not My Fault: Why personal responsibility only goes so far in solving our health-care crisis,” Newsweek, Oct. 14, 2009.
2Jason M. Sutherland, Ph.D., et al., “Getting Past Denial — The high cost of health care in the United States,” New England Journal of Medicine, Volume 361:1227-1230, September 24, 2009, Number 13.
3Atul Gawande, “The Cost Conundrum: What a Texas town can teach us about health care,” The New Yorker, June 1, 2009.
4Nicole I. Larson, et al., “Neighborhood Environments: Disparities in Access to Healthy Foods in the U.S,” American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Volume 36, Issue 1, Pages 74-81.e10 (January 2009).