Finally, a little breathing room....

Health care reform.

We've heard the term a bazillion times since the last presidential election – so much so that it has almost become white noise. BUT, with the first phase of the Affordable Care Act taking effect last week, it’s more important than ever that we pay attention. Health insurance coverage is a huge financial issue for most survivors and so we want to make sure you understand what these new changes are and how they work.

As young adults with a history of cancer, having any sort of gap in insurance coverage is a terrifying prospect. Many of us are too old to be covered by our parents’ policies but can’t get coverage of our own due to our “pre-existing conditions.” For those that may be fortunate enough to secure a health insurance plan, the exorbitant cost of monthly premiums makes it impossible. In fact, young adults across the board are the most likely of all age groups to be uninsured – about one-third of us lack any sort of coverage. This is not okay.

Take a look at this video, produced by the Kaiser Family Foundation, for a great overview of what the new reform will bring and how it will affect us:

If you don’t have a chance to watch the whole thing, here are the main things for you to know:

• How many of you got booted off your parents’ insurance when you turned 19, got married or moved out on your own? Under this new health care reform, you’ll be covered until you’re 26 years old – regardless of whether you’re married, living at home or a student.
  

• As we all know, cancer is an expensive disease – especially given that the cost of treatment, usually over several years, far exceeds what an insurance company (up until now) would pay. The Affordable Care Act will eliminate those nasty caps on coverage – meaning that no matter how expensive your treatment, you won’t be stuck paying all the bills on your own.

• What pre-existing condition?! As the last of the changes go into effect in 2014, health insurance companies won’t be allowed to deny you coverage just because you’ve had cancer. Until then, there will be new options available for those who are uninsured and have a pre-existing condition; for more information, check this out: http://www.healthcare.gov/center/brochures/pcip.pdf.
  

Stay tuned for more posts on the Affordable Care Act!

The Kaiser Family Foundation is a non-profit private operating foundation, based in Menlo Park, California, dedicated to producing and communicating the best possible information, research and analysis on health issues.

Reducing Your Medical Debt

Kairol Rosenthal was diagnosed with cancer at 27 and discovered two days later she had been dropped by her insurance. Since then, she has spent the last decade fighting for her own health insurance, advocating for other young adult cancer patients, and researching and writing Everything Changes: The Insider’s Guide to Cancer in Your 20s and 30s. She’s here today to share with us tips on how to reduce your doctor bills. Take it away, Kairol:

The first step to reducing your medical debt is asking your doc or hospital upfront for a discount on your bill. Below are some great pointers I’ve adapted from the National Endowment for Financial Education’s brochure Avoiding and Managing Medical Debt. These steps take time, chutzpah, and smarts but the dough you’ll save is well worth the work. (Plus, I try to have fun with it by pretending I’m an underdog powerhouse like Erin Brockovich.)

1. Go into this with a good attitude. Your odds are good: 50% of people who ask for reduced costs get them, plus your chances might be higher using these savvy strategies.

2. Talk to the right person, face-to-face: Your doc, your doc’s or hospital’s office, business, or billing manager. Don’t do it by phone or letter.

3. Honey goes farther than vinegar. Don’t whine, bitch or complain. Be polite. Kill’em with kindness.

4. Be persistent. Don’t take no for an answer. (I never do!) Many hospital staff don’t know the correct policies and will say “no” when they should say yes. Work your way up the ladder asking politely to talk to supervisors and don’t stop till you get to the top or until you get a yes.

5. Use organized ammo. Build your argument by finding a copy of the hospital’s free and discounted care policy. Search for it online or ask for a copy from the hospital. You might find info about it in their mission statement.

Or… The American Hospital Association has a Billing and Collections Practices Policy. 4,200 hospitals have signed on agreeing to assist patients who cannot pay for all or part of their care and make these policies accessible and written in clear language. Visit this link and click on “more than 4,200” and see if your hospital is on the list. If so, you’ve got some ammo. Use it.

6. Contact your State Attorney General. If you are at a non-profit hospital, many state AG’s will help ensure your hospital provides charity care. Find your State AG here. This call might be a red tape chore, but again, it could help save you big bucks.

7. Compare costs. People who have insurance usually pay less money for the same procedure than people who do not have insurance. Crazy and unfair, I know. But use it to your advantage. If you do not have insurance, do some high-level sleuthing to find out what patients with insurance or Medicare are paying for your same procedure codes and demand that you are charged the same.

8. Get it in writing. If a doctor or hospital agrees to your request, get it in writing!

For more financial assistance resources and money saving tips, download for free Ramenomics - the first chapter of Everything Changes: The Insider’s Guide to Cancer in Your 20s and 30s. You can get it on Kairol’s blog: Everythingchangesbook.com

A Fall Update from The SAMFund Staff

Sam and five of our first grant recipients in 2006 at a fundraising event held at the State Room in Boston. Larry Lucchino, CEO of the Boston Red Sox, was our honored guest - and brought signed baseballs for each of our grant recipients!

Late summer/fall is definitely our most exciting (and busiest!) time of year; it is also simultaneously our best and worst time of year.

Our Grants & Scholarship program, still our biggest program, is what we're all about - providing financial assistance to the people who need it most. Unfortunately, it also means saying no to a lot of incredibly deserving people. As a small organization trying to meet an overwhelming need, we just don't have enough funds for everyone who needs them. While we would love to say yes to every single one of our applicants, we know that giving out teeny tiny grants wouldn't even begin to make a dent in their medical bills, living expenses or other debts. We are committed to making a significant impact to as many young adults as possible, and having to turn people away is our incentive to continue to fundraise as best we can so that we can say yes to more people every year. The more we raise, the more we can give away.

Tomorrow marks the deadline for our 2010-2011 application, our sixth cycle to date. Our review committee will then spend the next several weeks reading and rating these applications based on a set of objective criteria. Reviewers try to identify those applicants with the most financial need, those who have a concrete plan for moving forward, and whose need is related the most closely to their cancer experience. In making recommendations to the Board, reviewers also consider other resources available to applicants and seek to fund those who lack other options.

(Side note: This is the main reason why The SAMFund isn't awarding scholarships for undergraduate tuition this year -- there are many other wonderful organizations that do! If you're seeking financial assistance for undergraduate tuition, let us know and we'd be happy to send you a spreadsheet of resources available to you. Just send an email to info@thesamfund.org with "Other resources for YAs" in the subject line.)

We try our best to fund expenses that are not being covered by any other organization. The categories that we will fund span a wide range -- from rent/mortgage supplementation, to medical bills, to prescription co-pays, to graduate and vocational training tuition, to student loan repayment, to insurance supplementation, to gym and yoga memberships, to family building costs, to computers, to standardized testing costs, and more. No other organization addresses such a diverse set of needs for young adult survivors.

We are proud to truly be a niche organization -- meeting needs that would otherwise fall through the cracks -- even though it means having to make some really difficult decisions. In this spirit, we're doing our best to try and expand our programming to support many more young adult survivors than we can through our Grants & Scholarships program. Stay tuned for news about our Financial Literacy Webinar series, which we hope to implement in the coming months!

Click here to join our mailing list to be notified when next year's application is ready. Best of luck to all the 2010-2011 applicants!

Complementary/Holistic/Alternative Health Care: What is it and how should I incorporate it into my own cancer journey?

We’re proud to introduce our second guest blogger, Allison B (who received a grant from The SAMFund in 2009 to cover four months of health insurance premiums), who is sharing her experience with complementary health care. Please note: this is one person’s story of navigating the world of complementary care in order to improve her overall well-being. The SAMFund would like to remind everyone to talk with their doctor before pursuing any forms of alternative treatment.

I wanted something more to treat my breast cancer. Don’t get me wrong, my doctors and nurses were awesome. They were very attentive and aware of my 26-year-old-ness. They knew I needed a little extra comfort and care, and for the most part, they gave it to me. Even the receptionists seemed to take a couple of extra minutes to chat with me. I knew I was in good hands, yet I also felt like something was missing.

One day, not long after my diagnosis, I asked my oncologist if there was anything more I could be doing to ‘fight’ my cancer. Specifically, I asked him about my diet. “I mostly eat healthy,” I said, “But, are there certain foods I should try to include or to avoid?” He turned and looked me square on. “Alli,” he replied, “This,” he waived his hand around the room where I sat connected to a drip machine, receiving my chemotherapy, “is your free ticket to hamburgers and french fries!”

My cheeks got hot, my eyes welled up with tears; the frustration was ready to boil over, but I chose not to let it out. Didn’t he understand that I wanted to improve my overall health? Didn’t he see that I needed to feel like there was something more that I could do? The idea of eating garbage during a health crisis just didn’t resonate with me. But, instead of arguing my point, I simply said “Thanks.” I nodded of my head, forced a slight smile, and directed my eyes back down to the book on my lap as I reached to put the headphones of my iPod back into my ears. I didn’t need to say it, but I thought: “We’re done here.”

So, I chose to figure it out on my own. Over the next several months I researched and read everything cancer and health-related that I could get my hands on. I enrolled in my own personal crash course covering any and every kind of complementary treatment for cancer: nutrition, exercise, energy work, mind work, you name it. If it might help me heal alongside my conventional medical treatment, I wanted to know about it. And, wow, it was overwhelming. I will spare you the details of the many wrong turns I took - turns that were fueled by passion, by frustration, and most often by fear. Instead, I will share with you the path that I eventually came to find: my path.

See, what I now understand, is that holistic healing is all about YOU. There is not one magic cure, pill, practice, book, diet, or retreat that is going to guarantee your health and longevity. Instead, there is a common thread of belief that your personal transformations and gains can help you to heal. Yeah, I know this sounds like a bunch of motivational B.S. Really, though, the truth is that complementary health care can work. However, the secret is not in the specific kind of care you seek. The secret of complementary/holistic/alternative health care is that it forces you to take care of YOU. It is your own self-initiative on your cancer journey that can empower you and bring you the boost of inspiration you need to get your body-mind-spirit healing.

Oh, and before I go on, let me make clear that my use of the word “healing” is NOT synonymous with the word “cure.” I am, of course, not going to tell you that you can cure your cancer. But what you can do is embark on a journey to heal your life. I like to use the term “complementary” in regards to self-initiated healing. It is not an alternative to your medical care; it is a complement to it. I also like the word “holistic,” in that it directly refers to the mind-body-spirit connection, but something tells me that the majority of people find it to sound a bit hokey. So, complementary it is.

Now, in terms of complementary care, this is what I suggest: Explore what is available to you, utilize resources that will not interfere with your medical treatment, do what feels right for you, and most importantly, allow yourself time everyday to heal. That’s right, take a moment everyday to focus only on yourself, not on what you need to do, or how you are going to do it, or who is going to help you get there. Just stop, take a breath, and listen to your own heart. Try to hear the voice within. Trust me, it’s there. You are the only one who has the answers.

This is a hard thing to do, no doubt. And, believe me, I am still struggling with it. But, I think what helps us get there – to that place where we can hear our own inner voice – is these practices of complementary care. Yoga, journaling, meditation, music or art therapy, energy work, nutritional support – what all these things have in common is that the practice of implementing them into our daily lives allows us a moment in time to listen within, live with deliberation, and, “aahhhh,” release some built-up emotional baggage. Energetically, figuratively or literally, complementary care allows you to tap into your holistic self and empower your own healing journey.

For more information on complementary healing options, check out the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine at http://nccam.nih.gov/health/whatiscam/.