Its true many illnesses are unavoidable, yet it is clear that each person has the power to improve his or her own health and well being. Eating well, exercising, resting, sleeping and relaxing, each can have a positive effect on ones health. Another key factor in a persons health and well being is the choice to not abuse alcohol, drugs, or tobacco.

Doctors believe that it is the people who have a positive attitude towards life, who believe that their lives have purpose, are manageable and have meaning, have the best chance of living a healthy and long-lived life.

Before the 20the century there was very little public support for health care. The government rarely got involved and when they did it was only to deal with epidemics or to clean up slums. Much has changed since then.

The problem is staying healthy is both becoming easier and harder these days. We have a constantly advancing health care system along with the advances in technology. On the other hand we are constantly introducing hazers into out lives such as pollution and toxic waste. New and more deadly virus’s and diseases are always developing, yet our life expectancy in north America has almost doubled in the last century. Spite all the health hazards the choice to remain healthy is still in your own hands. Avoiding unhealthy situations, foods, and life-styles along with staying positive are the best ways to have a healthy mind and body.

Acronyms have always dominated the practice of medicine and one of the older ones is RVS or Relative Value Scale. Simply stated, although far more complicated in reality, the RVS sets the fee structure that physicians will be paid by insurance companies and agencies such as Medicare and Medicaid. A lesser known acronym is RUC which represents the real power behind the RVS. This entity, the Relative Value Scale Update Committee (RUC), evaluates physician’s procedures and makes recommendations to the CMS or better known at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. These reimbursement recommendations are almost always followed, i.e., ninety percent of the time. More alarmingly, they almost always favor dramatic increases for specialists rather than primary care physicians…six times more frequently.

Why is this disparity so important one might ask? It is terribly important for a whole host of reasons. These include:

The compensation disparity between specialist and primary care docs widens geometrically. Specialists now earn $135,000 per year and $3.5 million during a career more than a primary care doctor;

• Clearly, with this type of incentive, many more docs are becoming specialists and eschewing the field of primary care;
• The PCP base is shrinking at exactly the time we need it most;
• The new Health Care legislation is heaping 37 million more Americans into the health care system and they all need a PCP

Income disparities shape medical student specialty choice Specialty and geographic distribution of the physician workforce: what influences medical student and resident choices? March 2009. Accessed January 4, 2010

It is not just “Houston” that has a problem…it is the American health care system and all Americans. Soon the waiting time for a PCP appointment will lengthen to dangerous intervals. Overworked and underpaid docs will be the norm and that isn’t good for anyone.

One solution is concierge medicine or often referred to as Direct Care. A Direct Care practice denotes an experienced primary care physician who limits his or her practices to 300 to 400 patients and works for an annual fee rather than accepting insurance payments. This allows patients to receive the care they need and deserve and PCP to practice medicine in a thorough and safe manner while achieving a reasonable earnings level.

One of the number one concerns of employees these days in health care insurance for themselves and their families and not just any healthcare insurance but affordable too. Are you paying too much to protect your family? You are aren’t you and it is a concern of yours too isn’t it? Indeed and you are not alone in fact a recent survey in Human Resource Magazine indicated the it was the number one concern even more than salary to corporate hires by over a two to one margin.

One problem is the over litigiousness in the healthcare industry partly due to high costs of regulatory compliance and partly due to the incessant litigation of Mal-practice on doctors, thus causing them to raise their prices to afford insurance and therefore higher costs to folks like you.

Many times employers offer various choices that you can choose from and you have to study each plan carefully to make sure if it fits your needs. But what if you are self-employed then what do you do? Well there are many choices for self-employed folks, but you again need to study all the possible options so you can get the right policy that is best for you. Think on this.

Natural health courses may be something you want to consider if you are interested in a natural health career. I was interest in attending a natural health college because I want to help people and I enjoy new and different approaches to healthcare. Some of the courses I read seemed to be very difficult so I might be in over my head here. I found out that some schools offer courses in Chinese natural health care. The Chinese seem to have the answers for all the ills with natural remedies.

There are many courses to choose from and take so I like the options and there is a great potential to succeed when and if I ever graduate. I will be a high school senior this coming year so I have time to decide what my college will be. I’m not sure what my career would be though I thought about becoming a massage therapist one day. When you see the course schedule it’s overwhelming because the amount of education involved.

I noticed the amount of people who are enrolled in those types of natural health schools isn’t that much so maybe I will have a better chance to land a job after I graduate. I might change my mind between now and when I graduate from high school but the chances are I will likely still be interested. Natural health courses seem as if they will be a challenge but I know if I am committed I can do it.

The Oregon Medicaid program in the 1980’s instituted a type of rationing of health care that determined a finite list of services that were provided to an expanded number of recipients. This was novel in that it openly and overtly admitted that the resources available to pay for services in their state’s Medicaid program were limited, and that they were going to spend those dollars on the services that were determined to be the most cost-effective.

By doing this they attempted to provide a level of health care services to all residents who were below 100% of the federal poverty level, while reducing services for which the individuals currently receiving health care insurance through the state’s Medicaid program. The reduction was accomplished by not paying for services that fell below a cutoff for cost effectiveness of the service.

Essentially all health care services were analyzed and a measurement of the benefit and cost of the services was given a grade. All of the services were put into a list from the most value for cost being #1 on down to the least value for the cost. Then an estimate of the number of persons who would require the services was used to calculate the cost of each service. The number of dollars available for Medicaid was used to determine which of the services would be covered.

The services that were not covered were at times controversial, and at times heartbreaking. Certain transplants and therapy for some cancers brought great anguish to patients in need of these services. Initially the decisions about which services to cover were made based strictly on the best evidence available. As these various emotional issues came up legislation mandating coverage of various conditions eroded the integrity of the list of covered services.

Some alarming statistics based on a study recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine should lead to more awareness on the part of the public.

“If physicians’ ideas translate into their practices, then 14 percent of patients – more than 40 million Americans – may be cared for by physicians who do not believe they are obligated to disclose information about medically available treatments which they consider objectionable,” wrote Dr. Farr Curlin of the University of Chicago and his colleagues.

“In addition, 29 percent of patients — or nearly 100 million Americans — may be cared for by physicians who do not believe they have an obligation to refer the patient to another provider for such treatments.”

The study showed that men, Christian doctors and physicians with the strongest religious beliefs were most likely to say it is permissible to withhold information and not refer a patient to another source of controversial care.

The survey also found that a lot of doctors object to some forms of treatment. As stated by Curlin’s team, “For example, 52 percent of the physicians in this study reported objections to abortion for failed contraception, and 42 percent reported objections to contraception for adolescents without parental consent.”

They found that 86 percent of the doctors believed in presenting all options and 71 percent would refer patients to another doctor who does not object to the requested procedure.

The authors recommended that patients should ask their doctors outright about various options, since the survey showed that many doctors accommodate patients even when they have moral objections to certain situations. For example, of the 42 percent of respondents who reported objections to contraception for adolescents without parental consent, only 22 percent said physicians are not obligated to disclose all possible options to teenagers.

And regarding giving information to patients about terminal sedation, a practice that only 17 percent of the doctors found objectionable, only 11 percent of those doctors whose objections were based on moral reservations said doctors can withhold information.

“When we train doctors we encourage them to try to be ethical, and to practice ethically they must first make judgments in any situation about what is good for the patient,” Curlin said.

“They also have to have the will to do what they judge to be good. And in our culture, where there are so many possible uses of medical technology, people will disagree at times on what is permissible.”

Gaining weight is a gradual process that requires constant training and high intensity workouts. However, people do have certain myths regarding weight gaining program.

High repetitions burn fat while low repetitions build muscle: This statement is far from being true. In order to lose weight, one needs to decrease average calorie intake. However, for gaining muscle strength, one needs to have a progressive workload with a variable frequency of repetitions.

Vegetarians cannot build muscle: Research has shown that vegetarians can indeed gain muscle with regular training and daily supplementation of soy protein isolates.

Strength training will make you look masculine: This is the most common myth among women. However, building muscle is a steady process that needs proper strength-training regime ably supported by proper diet. Testosterone, which is the male sex hormone, is primarily responsible for muscle gaining in men. The secretion of this hormone is quite low in women, resulting in lesser muscular growth.

Many people believe that they can eat anything if they are doing a regular exercise. However, diet has a major role to play in defining a person’s general health and physique. It is always important to balance the ratio of calorie intake and calories burnt.

Occasional break from a rigorous training schedule is useful as it helps in refreshing the muscles and helps them to recover.

Eating more protein doesn’t necessarily help in gaining weight. Muscle building is primarily dependent on two factors which include a progressive workload and eating good calorie food. Diet derived from carbohydrates would be more useful.

One should always avoid taking steroids for building muscle as they are more harmful than being good.

Dental plans are not included in basic health insurance plans as most of the dental treatments are elective and to a degree, cosmetic. Some medical plans take account of dental coverage as an added feature. Dental disease is often preventable; with the exclusion of injury or damage due to an accident. Only the initial diagnostic procedures such as exams and x-rays in dental treatment are relatively low-cost. Otherwise the treatments are considered to be expensive.

Low cost dental insurance is necessary for anyone who cares about their teeth and also doesn’t like paying the full price for dental work. You will have peace of mind with a low cost dental health insurance as you can be safe in the knowledge that you and your family are covered for any eventuality and will obtain the best dental care, whenever you need it for a relatively small monthly or annual payment. Low cost dental health insurance is available from top rated companies like Blue Cross and Blue Shield, PacifiCare, MetLife Dental, HealthNet and Kaiser. You should identify how your plan is designed, since this can considerably affect the plan’s coverage and your out-of-pocket expenses.

A low cost dental health insurance has many different levels of cover. You can opt for basic dental health maintenance which will cover a portion or in certain cases the whole cost incurred of dental procedures such as fillings, root canal work and general maintenance. Other affordable extensive policies that cover periodontics, orthodontics, all sorts of filling, tooth and bridge work, as well as check-ups and cleaning are also available. Each low cost dental plan is different. Accordingly it is advisable to check the terms, conditions and coverage of each prospective insurer before taking a decision. With several options available, you can choose a low cost dental health insurance that is right for you and your family.

Like so many others we now and then experience cold sores. Sometimes just a small outburst and other times an outburst that really hurts a lot. Even worse is when it appears in your mouth, on the hard palates. If it appears in your mouth, try to cool it down with ice cubes or ice cream!

Cold sores – also called fever blisters – are caused by the Herpes simplex virus. It`s a viral infection of the skin and are contagious. They can appear once or return again and again.

Red blisters appear on your lip.Once you have had an episode of cold sores, the virus lies dormant in the nerve cells in your skin. Fever, menstruation, stress and exposure to the sun may trigger a recurrence.

Signs and symptoms

* small, painful, fluid filled blisters

* pain or tingling often precedes the blisters by one or two days

* usual duration of seven to ten days

* a yellow crust forms

Cold sores are quite common and though you can`t prevent them, you can take some steps to limit the duration of an occurrence.
Shared eating utensils, chap sticks, razors and towels may spread this infection.

* use creams rich on myrrh and thyme

* take a pain reliever if needed

* avoid picking