*** The Changing Healthcare System Changes Your Personal Health Responsibilities

Perhaps you already know it. Your healthcare remains a priority. Nothing is of more importance in your life than the status of your health. From brain function to trimming your toe nails requires every aspect of your body activity to be coordinated in a smooth running metabolic engine. Any question about that medical issue?

It isn’t automatic. You have to be involved in the whole process and therein lie your personal responsibilities for health maintenance. If you don’t respond to what health care providers are telling you to do, you get fat or drive your physician nuts with your frequent medical office visits, unending medical symptoms, and miserable outlook on life which you keep bugging your friends about.

Herein lies the crux of all your healthcare issues you will ever face in life.

How much importance you assign to maintaining your health defines your responsibilities for improving it. It’s doubtful anyone prefers to be unhealthy. But, you see, the healthcare system keeps changing day by day. You have to keep up with those changes and react accordingly.

I hate to tell you this, but the full hefty responsibility for medical treatment and care is gradually being transferred to your own shoulders. Medical doctors, in a sense, are moving from a position of directing your medical care to a position of assisting in your healthcare. And what does that mean to you?

• You are offered choices instead of being told what is going to be done, and you must be medically knowledgeable enough to make the right decision
for yourself.

• Your time with any healthcare professional is so limited that you are forced to resolve your healthcare information questions another way.

• Your resources for health information have changed from a quickie office visit with the healthcare provider to finding the medical information elsewhere.

• Your ability to contact healthcare advocates and providers directly for medical information has become severely restricted. Now, you must rely on yourself to find the health information you need.

• Health information transmitted to you second hand by the office receptionist may be inaccurate or not helpful.

For these and many other reasons you will increasingly need outside resources which enable you to at least maintain adequate healthcare, let alone the necessary responsibility of improving your own health.

Your health responsibilities go well beyond becoming an expert about your own disease problems. Your family will expect you to be their healthcare advocate as well. Once you discover where you can find reliable healthcare information, whether it’s online at Cullmanchat Medical Forum, from a home health care nurse, or by reading articles about health you become a highly regarded asset to your family and friends. Talk about a way to improve your self-esteem! Wow!

So where are those reliable sources of healthcare information?

1. Physicians— online doctors or in the medical office.
2. Internet— trusted medical websites or websites publishing peer reviewed info.
3. Healthcare Institutions— hospitals, clinics, and doctor offices.
4. Medical Educational Facilities— medical schools, teaching hospitals.
5. Internet Article Directories— where medical information is peer reviewed.
6. Public Libraries

Health information is often available in many formats, such as CDs, MP3 audios, downloaded from Internet sites, printed from Internet sites, newsletters, email advice or recommendations, and others.

Then, there’s another responsibility beyond all those mentioned above. Want to take a guess what that is?

Applying the healthcare and medical information for your own use and health needs is it.

Just learning all you need is not enough……..you have to use it in a beneficial way. Weight loss is a hot topic in the media today along with dieting and special dieting programs. If you’re obese, lose weight. If you’re depressed, seek immediate help.

Why do most people know what to do, but never do it? The answer to that question is multi-faceted and quietly resides in each person’s mind. A common reason for procrastination and inertia is way beyond problems with motivation, desire, goal setting, self-intimidation, and distractions.

No one takes time to tell you exactly how to do it.

It’s a fact that has long been neglected in the medical community. How many times have you been told, “Lose some weight, or get yourself together, or forget all that crap.” But, how often does anyone then go on to tell you the best, fastest, safest, and proper way to go about it? Doesn’t that fry your oysters?

If anyone has an idea to do something and doesn’t know how, how do you think most people react to that? You bet—put it off for a better time (which never comes), find something easier to do, find someone to do it for you. It’s exactly the way people react to healthcare problems and issues.

Ask yourself these questions:

1. If I knew exactly how to improve my health, would I likely go ahead
and do it?

2. If I knew where I can find legitimate reliable healthcare information, would I feel more secure about how I am being treated medically by my doctor?

3. If I have a place that explains healthcare issues in an understandable way, wouldn’t I be able to get much more out of my visit with my doctor?

4. If my medical and healthcare is worsening, wouldn’t it be smart to dig into the healthcare information available to me and benefit from it?

Comment: Eventually everyone will be taking on all these responsibilities. The problems with our health care system will require it—unless you have no plans to ever live long enough to enjoy your grandchildren. Others depend on you one way or another. The solution to better healthcare is knowing what to do and how to do it by diving into every source of healthcare information available.

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