Tips for the Consumer

In today's confusing, fragmented, and often adversarial health care system, patients must become far more activist. Use these consumer tips to help you be your own best health care advocate. Patients like you need to be assertive when asking Questions For Your Doctor, the specialists taking care of your loved one, or your health plan and its representatives. When Choosing A Health Plan, patients and their families must understand the system well and demand to know much more about how to find and judge the quality of care. For it is true that ignorance about health plans, the performance of health providers, and issues of patients rights, can quite literally stop a beating heart. Learn what you can do to Help Prevent Medical Errors in your own health care. Get Tips From the Experts — people who have had personal and professional experience with the health care system. Unravel the complexities of Medicare managed care in the Choosing a Medicare HMO section and get helpful advice on Getting Children Enrolled in special plans geared toward making sure all children have health insurance coverage.