#Underinsurance

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Is Your Business Properly Insured? Protect What Matters with FundaGroup

Did you know that underinsurance is one of the biggest risks to small businesses in New Zealand? Many business owners don’t have adequate cover for business interruptions, legal liabilities, or asset loss, which could result in substantial financial burdens. Protecting your business with the right insurance can mean the difference between recovery and closing your doors permanently.

At FundaGroup, we’re dedicated to ensuring you’re covered, no matter what comes your way. Whether it’s Business Interruption, Professional Indemnity, Property, or Management Liability Insurance, we’ve got you covered. Our locally owned brokerage provides tailored insurance solutions that adapt as your business grows, giving you peace of mind when it matters most.

Don’t leave your business vulnerable. Contact us at 09 278 8800 or admin@fundagroup.co.nz for a free consultation to review and update your insurance strategy.

[ashburnhaminsurance]

Is Your Rental Property Underinsured?

Insurance is a vital part of being a landlord, protecting you and your property against a number of risks including theft, damage and even tenant injury, in cases where a claim is necessary. However, a shocking number of landlords are finding that they are underinsured when it comes to their policy and often accidentally. From incorrect valuations to changes in economic inflation or even the cost…

[sashazakbum]

[normal-with-adhd-is-a-joke]

I've seen several posts discussing the trade-offs of using a mobility aid, and how many mobility aids can cause health issues later on. While this is absolutely true, I want to emphasize something else very important.

It is not normal for your mobility aid to be causing you new-onset issues.

If you are experiencing new pain, muscle weakness, contracture, etc. it's important to look into it asap. Your doctor might have gone over possible issues and their danger levels at prescription or followup appointments for your aid, if they gave you educational material about these issues check that first. If you're experiencing an issue that you're not 100% sure is an expected (and safe enough to not be an emergency) side effect of use, get in touch with a doctor to make sure you're not having a fixable problem and/or a medical emergency. An occupational therapist was able to help me the most but depending on your condition and the issues you're experiencing you might benefit from a physical therapist or a specialist more. Another important thing of note:

Open pressure sores/bedsores are an emergency.

It can feel silly to go to the hospital for a small wound, but if they're not treated and you aren't repositioned to take pressure off the sore you could develop a bacterial infection and die. More than 24,000 people die from pressure sores every year. If you spend a lot of time in bed, sitting in the same place, or in a wheelchair/powerchair you need to learn to recognize the early signs of pressure sores and seek out ways to prevent them. There are special mattresses and cushions specifically for preventing sores. If you have paralysis or another condition that might mask pain you need to either check yourself regularly or have someone check you regularly for sores.

Less important but still good to think about, I recommend talking to someone who specializes in joints (i.e. an orthopedic doctor) about how you position yourself in a bed, couch, or chair if you spend a lot of time in one. Take a picture of your setup, bring it to them, and ask if there's anything more you can do to prevent joint or muscle injury.

[millarlawfirm]

Car accident claims can be complicated. In our latest Legal Guide, we explain how to make an Uninsured Motorist (UM) or Underinsured Motorist (UIM) claim in Georgia when the at-fault driver lacks sufficient coverage. https://atlantaadvocate.com/legal-guides/car-accidents/uninsured-motorist/

[lokiinmediasideblog]

PLEASE SPREAD THIS AROUND TO KEEP COVID SHOTS FREE FOR THE UNINSURED IN THE USA

[misku-nimfa]

TW: U.S. Health Insurance system & Underinsured

*Apparently* the out of pocket max is the mas I pay for people in network. With the deductible being the maximum amount I pay *entirely on my own* for people in network. While any claim insurance decides to deny putting towards either is treated like I'm doing *nothing*. Even when I explicitly chose this plan so my doctor would stay in network, I fucking checked that the doctor was in network with the insurance company AND the doctor, but I'm the ***silly*** one for expecting the damn coverage I am paying for 🤬

[politijohn]

Americans' animosity towards the US health insurance industry is justified

We spend more on excess health care administration than all public colleges spend on everything...

Excess health care administration is the amount by which those expenses would fall if we switched to a single payer system, according to the CBO.

Health insurance is increasingly costly...

More than 26,000 Americans die each year due to lack of health care. 44% of Americans are either underinsured, uninsured, or will experience a gap in health care coverage...

8% of Americans have medical debt which totals over $220 billion...

Insurance claim denials are on the rise. The process for why a claim is denied is secretive and often administered using shady practices...

[thoughtportal]

Join us in urging Congress to fund free COVID vaccines for underinsured and uninsured adults. The CDC’s Bridge Access Program, which provides COVID vaccines to uninsured and underinsured adults, is ending prematurely in August 2024 due to a loss of congressional funding.

Thanks to our community’s advocacy, the CDC voted to recommend the upcoming 2024-2025 vaccine formulations for all ages, 6 months and up. All of us need access to the latest vaccines to reduce the risk of severe disease, reduce the risk of Long COVID, better match currently circulating variants, and combat waning immunity. Now, we need your help again to demand congressional funding for vaccine access for uninsured and underinsured adults.

You can submit a letter as seen below via our Action Network campaign, keeping our letter in full or editing it as you wish. Letters to elected officials are most effective when they start with a brief personal comment (a sentence or two) about why vaccine access for uninsured people matters to you, your loved ones, and your community.

[meadowsopranostoriamosposter]

Remember when an underinsured podiatrist named dr.car ran me over with his car, breaking several bones in my ankle and leg, and I had to just act normal when they said his name and profession in zoom court

[spooniestrong]

Home #Test2Treat program for COVlD and flu saves lives. Let’s fight for it!

#Test2Treat was designed to reduce barriers to care for those underinsured and without healthcare coverage by offering FREE tests, telehealth, and treatment for both COVlD and flu — and even though 100 million people are eligible, the program was recently ended. Tests and treatment help our communities manage current sickness while lowering the chance of #LongCOVID and #LongFlu.

Join us in advocating that our government restore, expand, and widely promote #Test2Treat as a critical layer of protection for ALL!

Sign a letter to NIH Director Dr. Monica Bertagnolli: https://bit.ly/4bwHhnO

Also write to the White House and your representatives: https://bit.ly/3TX5gGM

[itmeblog]

If you're in the US and underinsured or uninsured and need to get that COVID vaccine without breaking the bank (god this is ridiculous), the Bridge Access Program is giving them out for "free" (using taxes, but like. it's free).

[covid-safer-hotties]

Coronavirus vaccines, once free, are now pricey for uninsured people - Published Sept 3, 2024

As updated coronavirus vaccines hit U.S. pharmacy shelves, adults without health insurance are discovering the shots are no longer free, instead costing up to $200.

The federal Bridge Access Program covering the cost of coronavirus vaccines for uninsured and underinsured people ran out of funding. Now, Americans with low incomes are weighing whether they can afford to shore up immunity against an unpredictable virus that is no longer a public health emergency but continues to cause long-term complications and hospitalizations and kill tens of thousands of people a year.

The program’s elimination marks the latest tear in a safety net that once ensured people could protect themselves against the coronavirus regardless of their financial situation. Health experts worry that the paltry 22 percent rate of adults staying up-to-date on vaccines will erode further. And they fear that the roughly 25 million people without health insurance in the nation will be especially vulnerable to covid because they tend to be in poorer health and avoid medical care when sick.

Nicole Savant, a 33-year-old part-time paralegal and dog walker, lost her Medicaid benefits last year when her income rose. She wants the latest shot because she knows people who died of covid before the vaccines became available and because she faces a higher risk of severe disease being overweight.

She was floored when she was quoted $201.99 at an appointment to receive the vaccine at a St. Louis-area CVS. She wasn’t sure if she even had that much money in her bank account.

“I have so little money, and I have other needs as well, like monthly medications,” said Savant, who doubts she will get the vaccine if she has to pay out of pocket. “I would hope for the best, which I really don’t want to do.”

At least 34 million doses of last year’s vaccine were administered to adults, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Of those, 1.5 million were funded through the Bridge Access Program, which was originally set to end this December, allowing vaccinations ahead of the usual winter wave.

But it expired ahead of schedule because Congress rescinded $6.1 billion in coronavirus emergency spending authority as part of a deal to avert a government shutdown. Congress also declined to fund the Biden administration’s proposal for a Vaccines for Adults program that could provide routine immunizations, including for the coronavirus, for free, similar to an existing Vaccines for Children program.

Private insurers, along with the Medicare and Medicaid government programs, are required to pay for coronavirus vaccines. The Bridge Access Program offered a backup option for people encountering insurance snags.

The CDC said it identified an additional $62 million to buy coronavirus vaccines targeting the latest variants for distribution through state and local health agencies — which local officials say is a sliver of the overall need. CDC spokeswoman Jasmine Reed said the partnership with state and local officials can provide shots to 1 million insured and underinsured Americans.

Raynard Washington, who leads the Mecklenburg County health department in North Carolina, said it’s difficult for financially strapped health agencies to tap their own funds for coronavirus vaccines. Under CDC contracts, health officials spend $78 a dose for the vaccine from the drug company Moderna and pay $100 for the version from Pfizer-BioNTech, compared with $15 to $20 for flu shots.

Washington, who also leads the Big Cities Health Coalition, an organization representing metropolitan health departments, said vaccine manufacturers should charge health departments less to help vaccinate more people without insurance.

“What’s at stake is we are reverting back to a system where a person’s financial ability to be able to pay will determine their ability to be healthy,” Washington said.

Pfizer and Moderna said their vaccines would be available through patient assistance programs that offer free vaccines, but spokespeople did not offer details on the scope and eligibility of those programs. Novavax, whose vaccine was approved by regulators last week, said it does not have a patient assistance program for the upcoming fall season. Moderna and Novavax did not respond to questions about the rate they charge health officials. Pfizer defended its pricing practices.

“Pfizer has priced the vaccine to ensure the price is consistent with the value delivered and with the goal of uninterrupted access for every American,” the company said in a statement provided by spokesman Kit Longley.

Community health centers that often provide low-cost care to uninsured people administered 24 million shots when the federal government provided them, according to the National Association of Community Health Centers. Now, the facilities will have to scale back those programs and rely on local health officials for vaccines, some of whom would have little to share, said Luis Padilla, the association’s chief health officer.

“This country doesn’t provide enough for public health infrastructure and resources,” Padilla said.

The approval of updated coronavirus vaccines on Aug. 22 sent some Americans dashing to get shots before the end of the month. The CDC webpage about the Bridge Access Program, until Friday, said it ended in August without making clear it funded only the previous vaccines, which could no longer be administered after the new shots were authorized.

Adrianna Ruiz, 32, and their girlfriend showed up Wednesday to a CVS appointment in Atlanta hoping to get vaccinated before a Labor Day weekend cross-country road trip to California to help a friend with cancer move their belongings.

Ruiz lost insurance after getting laid off from a nonprofit job in July but believed the vaccine would be free based on the CDC website. But a CVS employee confirmed the program was no longer in effect. Ruiz gets about $300 in weekly unemployment benefits.

“If I want to eat and pay bills, then I can’t afford to pay $200,” Ruiz said.

Instead of getting new shots, Ruiz looked up options to enroll in subsidized insurance plans during the road trip. And the precautions they are embracing on the journey, including taking a PCR test before embarking, wearing N95 respiratory masks at gas stations and packing lunches to eat on picnic blankets in parks, have become more urgent.

Shannon Donnell, a critical care nurse in New York, plans to eat the out-of-pocket costs of an updated coronavirus vaccine. She works on contract without health benefits and said the plans she qualified for through the state’s Affordable Care Act marketplace were too costly with $500 monthly premiums and a $5,000 deductible.

She believes in the urgency of vaccines after watching covid patients die while she worked in Manhattan during the devastating surge in spring 2020 and later cared for unvaccinated patients struggling to breathe in a Texas covid intensive care unit right as the shots arrived. Coronavirus patients no longer flood the intensive care units where she now works, but when they arrive, they are often immunocompromised or unvaccinated.

“It feels like health-care workers are still being left to fend for ourselves in many ways,” Donnell, 48, said. “No one is stepping up to say, ‘Hey, I’ll cover that for you’ before you go into your shift of covering covid patients.”

The Bridge Access Program also extended an opportunity for free coronavirus vaccines to international visitors and undocumented immigrants, who have limited health insurance options.

Vasu, a 56-year-old undocumented and uninsured immigrant in Chicago, hoped to get vaccinated again after hearing about friends getting sick, including one in his 30s whose symptoms lasted for months, and after the outbreak at the Democratic National Convention. A friend offered to pay for her vaccine when Vasu lamented in a Facebook message that the end of the Bridge Access Program left her “screwed.”

“We are talking about a large group of people who are going to lose access or are too nervous about accessing vaccines,” said Vasu, who spoke on the condition she be identified only by a middle name to avoid the scrutiny of immigration authorities. “The government keeps saying it’s your responsibility to be vaccinated. But you are not making it easy.”

The changing landscape for the coronavirus vaccine stands in stark contrast to 2021 and 2022 when free shots were widely distributed. But the urgency of vaccination has subsided as the virus’s toll lessens now that nearly every American has built up immunity from previous infections or shots and hospitals are no longer overwhelmed. People 65 and older, who are at the highest risk of severe illness and death, qualify for free vaccines through Medicare.

Still, health officials recommend young and middle-aged adults receive updated coronavirus vaccines because most Americans have risk factors for complications and because the vaccine reduces the threat of the lingering debilitating symptoms of long covid.

Adriane Casalotti, chief of government and public affairs at the National Association of County and City Health Officials, said the success of the early distribution of coronavirus vaccines “showed us what can be done when you make vaccines accessible and easy to get.”

“But that shifted now,” she added. “We are back to the traditional health-care system we’ve had, and the struggles we’ve had in that health-care system.”

[fatliberation]

When We Leave NEDA Behind, Where do We Go?

A Guide by Sharon Maxwell @heysharonmaxwell

NEDA has a long history of harming the communities it is supposed to serve. As we #leaveNEDAbehind, I encourage you to follow the following ED orgs who are committed to serving and supporting ALL folks with eating disorders.

The National Alliance for Eating Disorders

The National Alliance for Eating Disorders (“The Alliance”) is the leading national non-profit organization providing education, referrals, and support for all individuals experiencing eating disorders, as well as their loved ones. The Alliance’s services include:

Educational presentations and training days

Free, weekly therapist-led support groups nationwide (virtual and in-person) for those experiencing eating disorders and for their loved ones

Support and referrals through both a free helpline and comprehensive referral website/app

Direct, low-cost, life-saving, outpatient treatment to underinsured and uninsured adults in the south Florida community.

Unique and empowering Southern Smash scale smashing events and SmashTALK panel discussions.

@alliancefored | #notonemore | allianceforeatingdisorders.com

Project HEAL

Project HEAL (Help to Eat, Accept, and Live)’s mission is to break down systemic, healthcare, and financial barriers to eating disorder healing. Project Heal’s goal is to change the systems and, in the meantime, to provide life-saving support to people with eating disorders who the systems fail.

Project HEAL’s services include:

For those unsure of the next step in their eating disorder healing journey, Project HEAL provides free, impartial Clinical Assessments, followed by a comprehensive report with diagnosis, clinical recommendation, and referrals.

For those struggling to access treatment through their insurance, Project HEAL’s Insurance Navigation Program helps individuals understand their often confusing benefits and advocate on their behalf to get their treatment covered.

Project HEAL connects people to free Treatment Placements through the HEALers Circle, a national network of facilities and providers at every level of care. They also offer paid scholarships with providers with shared identities.

Project HEAL offers one-time Cash Assistance grants of $500-$1,500 to individuals who are unable to afford tertiary costs related to their treatment, i.e., housing and travel costs or insurance deductibles.

Crisis Textline: text HEALING to 741741 | www.theprojectheal.org

FEDUP

FEDUP (Fighting Eating Disorders in Underrepresented Populations) is a collective of trans+, intersex, and gender diverse people who believe eating disorders in marginalized communities are social justice issues. FEDUP’s mission is to make visible, interrupt, and undermine the disproportionately high incidence of eating disorders in trans and gender diverse individuals through radical community healing, recovery institution reform, research, empowerment, and education. FEDUP’s services include:

Support groups: FEDUP Closed Support Group for Gender-Diverse Folx, Support Group for Caregivers and Loved Ones of Trans & Intersex People With Eating Disorders, and Closed Support Group for QTBIPOC With Eds

Listing of FEDUP approved providers of therapy, counseling, nutrition services, and recovery coaches

Educational content about eating disorders

A conference for researchers, advocates, and clinicians in the eating disorder field where all attendees are empowered to participate, share their expertise, and learn from one another so that they can incorporate approaches that work - for our patients, our communities, and ourselves

@fedupcollective | fedupcollective.org

Nalgona Positivity Pride

Nalgona Positivity Pride is an unconventional eating disorder awareness organization that shines a light on the often-overlooked societal factors that perpetuate unrealistic and oppressive beauty and health standards. NPP offers a vial space for BIPOC to celebrate and embrace their bodies and identities. Nalgona Positivity Pride’s services include:

Education, such as public speaking services for universities, mental health and eating disorder organizations, and more as well as social media content

Consulting services for eating disorder providers and women of color entrepreneurs, including social media, branding, and event planning. Also, size diversity, creating eating disorder informed media, eating disorder harm reduction

An eating disorder harm reduction hub, including The EDHR Course and The EDHR Harm Reduction Community Services

2 eating disorder support groups: Sage and Spoon and The Eating Disorder Harm Reduction Community Circle

@nalgonapositivitypride | nalgonapositivitypride.com

Body Reborn

Body Reborn is a restorative space for people of color with disordered eating.

Body Reborn’s services include:

The Healing Collaborative - A free 8-week program for people of color. The program consists of three pillars: (1) Body Liberation, (2) Peer Support, and (3) Lifelong Community.

A non-hierarchical, discussion-driven conference that centers experiences of marginalized people in eating disorder care

@bodyreborn | bodyreborn.org

MEDA

MEDA (Multi-Service Eating Disorders Association) is dedicated to the prevention and compassionate treatment of eating disorders, so that every body has access to recovery and support. MEDA’s services include:

Assessments to individual therapy and groups, tailored treatment referrals. to hight levels of care, skill sessions to hels reach meal and snack goals, and 24/7/365 community available

The Sooner the Better helps communities learn the signs and symptoms of disordered eating, exercise, and body image.

MEDA offers presentations from a skilled mental health clinician on a variety of topics including Body Confidence, Eating Disorders, and Promoting Positive Body Culture in Your Schools and Homes.

MEDA also offers high-level clinical trainings for professionals working with eating disorders whether it is in the field of medicine, mental health, or education.

Annual national conference bringing over 275 people together to discuss the latest in eating disorder research and therapies

“Networking with a Purpose” meetings where clinicians come together to learn about specific aspects of treatment

Two graduate clinical interns are trained at MEDA every year, where they are supervised by clinicians and work directly with clients and loved ones.

@recoverwithmeda | medainc.org

ANAD

ANAD (National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders) provides free peer support to anyone struggling with an eating disorder. ANAD’s services include:

Eating Disorder Peer Support Groups

Recovery Mentorship Program offering free eating disorder support online for those who struggle with eating disorders but are motivated to recover. ANAD mentors are people who have walked the difficult road to recovery from their eating disorder and are recovered for at least 2 years.

Eating Disorder Treatment Directory

ANAD Approach Guides are designed to educate and “guide” its community on a wide range of topics, such as caregiving, pregnancy, binge eating, and navigating life after treatment.

@anadhelp | anad.org

heysharonmaxwell.com | #leaveNEDAbehind