DeSantis is a sick man that doesn't care if innocent people get executed as long as he gets the GOP nomination. Just like he doesn't care if children get vaccinated or rape victims have to birth their rape babies. The guy is a sociopath.
He doesn't care about those things because a large proportion of the GOP base do not care about them. That seems a bigger issue.
Hmm ... why buy a 'battlebus' with the money way ahead of any sign of another referendum? You could earn interest on the money, or you could watch the motorhome devalue a lot in the first couple of years. Who was the treasurer? Mickey Mouse?
It was allegedly bought for campaigning in the 2021 Scottish election.
Mr. kle4, the fun thing about the Ptolemies was that their twin passions were murder and incest. The latter makes it especially unlikely Cleopatra was anything but Greek (possibly with some ancestry from Iran due to an alliance in the more distant past, but Iranians are also famous for not being black Africans).
I thought incest was a later pursuit? I mean they didn’t jump from being a Macedonian general to an incestuous degenerate family day 1 did they?
Interesting a representative of comparethemarket has just said between 90,000 and 100,000 new applications a month are being received by for health insurance
Which should be regarded as a good thing by all those who want more spending on health services.
Until they try to claim, as there is a whole industry of profit to be had in refusing cover. See Dr Glaukomfleken:
Probably most people would be better off saving the premium into an ISA and using that to self fund on an as needed basis.
That's right. In fact insurance generally is a bad trade for the customer - since by definition the premiums must exceed the payouts.
Unless it's truly compulsory you should only do it in 2 situations: Where the risk if it crystallizes would break you financially. Where your own assessment of the risk crystallizing is higher than that of the insurance company.
Much of it is sold on spurious 'peace of mind' or 'being sensible' grounds or by making out it's compulsory when it isn't.
I follow my own advice on this. I have 3rd party motor, buildings, and that's it.
In a number of years of using UK medical insurance, not had a claim even questioned once.
The US situation doesn't apply here. Thankfully.
The vast majority are using it for non-gatekeeped access to consultants, as I am.
Yes, you can do that. The challenge then is to not end up going to consultants when you don't really need to so as to "get your money's worth".
Why don't you just pay-as-you-go though? Do you get more in medical services consumed than the premiums paid? Or does the cover come through your job as a benefit?
Although my comment to Foxy wasn't specifically about claims being turned down or about medical insurance in particular. More about the overall cost benefit test (for the customer) for insurance in general. It usually fails it.
Like most, I am getting it as a benefit via work. Usually extend it to the family, though.
The bit about “going to consultants when you don't really need to” is interesting. Take on
Interesting a representative of comparethemarket has just said between 90,000 and 100,000 new applications a month are being received by for health insurance
Which should be regarded as a good thing by all those who want more spending on health services.
Until they try to claim, as there is a whole industry of profit to be had in refusing cover. See Dr Glaukomfleken:
Probably most people would be better off saving the premium into an ISA and using that to self fund on an as needed basis.
That's right. In fact insurance generally is a bad trade for the customer - since by definition the premiums must exceed the payouts.
Unless it's truly compulsory you should only do it in 2 situations: Where the risk if it crystallizes would break you financially. Where your own assessment of the risk crystallizing is higher than that of the insurance company.
Much of it is sold on spurious 'peace of mind' or 'being sensible' grounds or by making out it's compulsory when it isn't.
I follow my own advice on this. I have 3rd party motor, buildings, and that's it.
In a number of years of using UK medical insurance, not had a claim even questioned once.
The US situation doesn't apply here. Thankfully.
The vast majority are using it for non-gatekeeped access to consultants, as I am.
Yes, you can do that. The challenge then is to not end up going to consultants when you don't really need to so as to "get your money's worth".
Why don't you just pay-as-you-go though? Do you get more in medical services consumed than the premiums paid? Or does the cover come through your job as a benefit?
Although my comment to Foxy wasn't specifically about claims being turned down or about medical insurance in particular. More about the overall cost benefit test (for the customer) for insurance in general. It usually fails it.
Like most, I am getting it as a benefit via work. Usually extend it to the family, though. Cheap at the price.
As with most insurance, it is about the percentage who actually claim vs the cost for those who do need it.
The bit about “going to consultants when you don't really need to” is interesting.
Take one issue. I had a shoulder problem. The GP mumbled a bit and offered some worryingly strong pain killers. This went on for months.
I went to a private consultant. MRI, X-ray, nerve conduction tests, blood tests etc before I went into see him. Ruled out all the nasty issues, diagnosed the actual issue and suggested a course of action that fixed the problem. About 5 working days from first call to an actual hard diagnosis based on facts.
The NHS seems to regard testing as something that should be rationed. So my doctor sat there guessing.
Ah well if you get it through work, of course you say 'thanks' and use it to the max.
Re the NHS, my experience is good. I've never had a problem getting the GP to refer me for tests and specialist follow-ups etc.
The problem tends to be speed and a linear attitude to testing.
As in you see a doctor, he orders a test, sometime later you get tested, then you make an appointment to see the doctor, who suggests another test….
One time, when my daughter was in hospital, I was so bored waiting for the results of test round x that I read up and diagnosed the issue. To be fair, it was a 1% presentation of a fairly common issue. But the symptoms matched exactly…. Of course they ignored my suggestion. Two weeks later… yup. If they had simply done all the tests when she entered hospital, I wouldn’t have been doing amateur Doctor House.
My best story of this was a medical friend who developed a peripheral neuropathy, who presented to the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in London, when on sabbatical from his mission hospital in Africa.
He explained that he had worked in a leprosy hospital for seven years in Africa, and thought he might have picked it up. Could they do a sural nerve biopsy?
The professor pooh-pooed his suggestion, did extensive investigations around possible spinal cord compression. After 6 weeks or so they gave in and did the nerve biopsy, and lo and behold...
(The reason that doctors spend so much time learning to take a patient history, is that 80% of the time that gives the diagnosis. Examination and investigations are generally for confirmation).
Mr. kle4, the fun thing about the Ptolemies was that their twin passions were murder and incest. The latter makes it especially unlikely Cleopatra was anything but Greek (possibly with some ancestry from Iran due to an alliance in the more distant past, but Iranians are also famous for not being black Africans).
I thought incest was a later pursuit? I mean they didn’t jump from being a Macedonian general to an incestuous degenerate family day 1 did they?
Interesting a representative of comparethemarket has just said between 90,000 and 100,000 new applications a month are being received by for health insurance
Which should be regarded as a good thing by all those who want more spending on health services.
Until they try to claim, as there is a whole industry of profit to be had in refusing cover. See Dr Glaukomfleken:
Probably most people would be better off saving the premium into an ISA and using that to self fund on an as needed basis.
That's right. In fact insurance generally is a bad trade for the customer - since by definition the premiums must exceed the payouts.
Unless it's truly compulsory you should only do it in 2 situations: Where the risk if it crystallizes would break you financially. Where your own assessment of the risk crystallizing is higher than that of the insurance company.
Much of it is sold on spurious 'peace of mind' or 'being sensible' grounds or by making out it's compulsory when it isn't.
I follow my own advice on this. I have 3rd party motor, buildings, and that's it.
In a number of years of using UK medical insurance, not had a claim even questioned once.
The US situation doesn't apply here. Thankfully.
The vast majority are using it for non-gatekeeped access to consultants, as I am.
Yes, you can do that. The challenge then is to not end up going to consultants when you don't really need to so as to "get your money's worth".
Why don't you just pay-as-you-go though? Do you get more in medical services consumed than the premiums paid? Or does the cover come through your job as a benefit?
Although my comment to Foxy wasn't specifically about claims being turned down or about medical insurance in particular. More about the overall cost benefit test (for the customer) for insurance in general. It usually fails it.
Like most, I am getting it as a benefit via work. Usually extend it to the family, though.
The bit about “going to consultants when you don't really need to” is interesting. Take on
Interesting a representative of comparethemarket has just said between 90,000 and 100,000 new applications a month are being received by for health insurance
Which should be regarded as a good thing by all those who want more spending on health services.
Until they try to claim, as there is a whole industry of profit to be had in refusing cover. See Dr Glaukomfleken:
Probably most people would be better off saving the premium into an ISA and using that to self fund on an as needed basis.
That's right. In fact insurance generally is a bad trade for the customer - since by definition the premiums must exceed the payouts.
Unless it's truly compulsory you should only do it in 2 situations: Where the risk if it crystallizes would break you financially. Where your own assessment of the risk crystallizing is higher than that of the insurance company.
Much of it is sold on spurious 'peace of mind' or 'being sensible' grounds or by making out it's compulsory when it isn't.
I follow my own advice on this. I have 3rd party motor, buildings, and that's it.
In a number of years of using UK medical insurance, not had a claim even questioned once.
The US situation doesn't apply here. Thankfully.
The vast majority are using it for non-gatekeeped access to consultants, as I am.
Yes, you can do that. The challenge then is to not end up going to consultants when you don't really need to so as to "get your money's worth".
Why don't you just pay-as-you-go though? Do you get more in medical services consumed than the premiums paid? Or does the cover come through your job as a benefit?
Although my comment to Foxy wasn't specifically about claims being turned down or about medical insurance in particular. More about the overall cost benefit test (for the customer) for insurance in general. It usually fails it.
Like most, I am getting it as a benefit via work. Usually extend it to the family, though. Cheap at the price.
As with most insurance, it is about the percentage who actually claim vs the cost for those who do need it.
The bit about “going to consultants when you don't really need to” is interesting.
Take one issue. I had a shoulder problem. The GP mumbled a bit and offered some worryingly strong pain killers. This went on for months.
I went to a private consultant. MRI, X-ray, nerve conduction tests, blood tests etc before I went into see him. Ruled out all the nasty issues, diagnosed the actual issue and suggested a course of action that fixed the problem. About 5 working days from first call to an actual hard diagnosis based on facts.
The NHS seems to regard testing as something that should be rationed. So my doctor sat there guessing.
Ah well if you get it through work, of course you say 'thanks' and use it to the max.
Re the NHS, my experience is good. I've never had a problem getting the GP to refer me for tests and specialist follow-ups etc.
The problem tends to be speed and a linear attitude to testing.
As in you see a doctor, he orders a test, sometime later you get tested, then you make an appointment to see the doctor, who suggests another test….
One time, when my daughter was in hospital, I was so bored waiting for the results of test round x that I read up and diagnosed the issue. To be fair, it was a 1% presentation of a fairly common issue. But the symptoms matched exactly…. Of course they ignored my suggestion. Two weeks later… yup. If they had simply done all the tests when she entered hospital, I wouldn’t have been doing amateur Doctor House.
My best story of this was a medical friend who developed a peripheral neuropathy, who presented to the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in London, when on sabbatical from his mission hospital in Africa.
He explained that he had worked in a leprosy hospital for seven years in Africa, and thought he might have picked it up. Could they do a sural nerve biopsy?
The professor pooh-pooed his suggestion, did extensive investigations around possible spinal cord compression. After 6 weeks or so they gave in and did the nerve biopsy, and lo and behold...
(The reason that doctors spend so much time learning to take a patient history, is that 80% of the time that gives the diagnosis. Examination and investigations are generally for confirmation).
In my daughters case, it required simple lab culture.
Instead my daughter was in an isolation ward (huge room, not especially isolated) for several weeks, because they couldn't work out what it was.
From talking to the doctors, they seemed to be very parsimonious with tests. Test, result, another test. Are they trained this way?
Every time I've gone private it is *all the tests* first. Then see the consultant. Who may pass you on to another specialist, but it seems rare to need more tests.
Football: Napoli only drew at home versus Verona. Would've got nice odds on that but the idea of backing it was never something I considered.
Netflix: I see they've decided to create a documentary about Cleopatra. And think that she was black.
Right... I mean, she was Macedonian (ultra-Macedonian thanks to the Ptolemy love of incest). But there we are.
Edited extra bit: the kicker is that even if she were Egyptian ethnically, that still isn't being black.
It's a strange one, as its one of those situations where a previous attempted fuss over alleged whitewashing in films seemed to peter out when people moaned about Gal Gadot being cast as Cleopatra.
www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-55409187.amp
It was just a weird pick to get worked up about accurate representation when even in the piece itself the best the moaners could do was "we dont know who her mum was so she might have been mixed race" and "reconstructions based on artefacts" might make her look mixed race.
The complaint was even more stupid as not only was it a moan that she 'might' not have been white, rather than that she definitely was not, but it said critics said an Arab or African should be cast. (I assume they meant arab or black, otherwise why specify the latter when there are arab Africans). How could they be mad about inaccurate representation when they couldn't state which would be accurate in the first place?
They were really just annoyed that’ll an Israeli woman (Gal Gadot) was cast in the role
True.
But a mystery is why anyone would want to claim the utterly useless Cleopatra.
Who's great 'achievement' was in destroying Egypt's independence.
I imagine being chosen to play “history’s most beautiful woman” would appeal to some
Football: Napoli only drew at home versus Verona. Would've got nice odds on that but the idea of backing it was never something I considered.
Netflix: I see they've decided to create a documentary about Cleopatra. And think that she was black.
Right... I mean, she was Macedonian (ultra-Macedonian thanks to the Ptolemy love of incest). But there we are.
Edited extra bit: the kicker is that even if she were Egyptian ethnically, that still isn't being black.
It's a strange one, as its one of those situations where a previous attempted fuss over alleged whitewashing in films seemed to peter out when people moaned about Gal Gadot being cast as Cleopatra.
www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-55409187.amp
It was just a weird pick to get worked up about accurate representation when even in the piece itself the best the moaners could do was "we dont know who her mum was so she might have been mixed race" and "reconstructions based on artefacts" might make her look mixed race.
The complaint was even more stupid as not only was it a moan that she 'might' not have been white, rather than that she definitely was not, but it said critics said an Arab or African should be cast. (I assume they meant arab or black, otherwise why specify the latter when there are arab Africans). How could they be mad about inaccurate representation when they couldn't state which would be accurate in the first place?
Because the people doing the complaining just want something to complain about (and, having found discrimination in some places, begin to see it everywhere.)
Besides, if they were really that bothered about diversity rather than offence taking, why wouldn't they try to popularise other historical figures who have fascinating stories, and where we can be pretty confident that they were actually black - like the Nubian pharoahs of Egypt, or Queen Candace?
It would be great to have a drama series about Akhenaton. Or from the other end of Africa, Cetshwayo.
Or historic Mali, Dahomey or Benin.
You mean like the rather poor (and historically stretched) film that is out at the moment?
Mr. kle4, the fun thing about the Ptolemies was that their twin passions were murder and incest. The latter makes it especially unlikely Cleopatra was anything but Greek (possibly with some ancestry from Iran due to an alliance in the more distant past, but Iranians are also famous for not being black Africans).
I thought incest was a later pursuit? I mean they didn’t jump from being a Macedonian general to an incestuous degenerate family day 1 did they?
Interesting a representative of comparethemarket has just said between 90,000 and 100,000 new applications a month are being received by for health insurance
Which should be regarded as a good thing by all those who want more spending on health services.
Until they try to claim, as there is a whole industry of profit to be had in refusing cover. See Dr Glaukomfleken:
Probably most people would be better off saving the premium into an ISA and using that to self fund on an as needed basis.
That's right. In fact insurance generally is a bad trade for the customer - since by definition the premiums must exceed the payouts.
Unless it's truly compulsory you should only do it in 2 situations: Where the risk if it crystallizes would break you financially. Where your own assessment of the risk crystallizing is higher than that of the insurance company.
Much of it is sold on spurious 'peace of mind' or 'being sensible' grounds or by making out it's compulsory when it isn't.
I follow my own advice on this. I have 3rd party motor, buildings, and that's it.
In a number of years of using UK medical insurance, not had a claim even questioned once.
The US situation doesn't apply here. Thankfully.
The vast majority are using it for non-gatekeeped access to consultants, as I am.
Yes, you can do that. The challenge then is to not end up going to consultants when you don't really need to so as to "get your money's worth".
Why don't you just pay-as-you-go though? Do you get more in medical services consumed than the premiums paid? Or does the cover come through your job as a benefit?
Although my comment to Foxy wasn't specifically about claims being turned down or about medical insurance in particular. More about the overall cost benefit test (for the customer) for insurance in general. It usually fails it.
Like most, I am getting it as a benefit via work. Usually extend it to the family, though.
The bit about “going to consultants when you don't really need to” is interesting. Take on
Interesting a representative of comparethemarket has just said between 90,000 and 100,000 new applications a month are being received by for health insurance
Which should be regarded as a good thing by all those who want more spending on health services.
Until they try to claim, as there is a whole industry of profit to be had in refusing cover. See Dr Glaukomfleken:
Probably most people would be better off saving the premium into an ISA and using that to self fund on an as needed basis.
That's right. In fact insurance generally is a bad trade for the customer - since by definition the premiums must exceed the payouts.
Unless it's truly compulsory you should only do it in 2 situations: Where the risk if it crystallizes would break you financially. Where your own assessment of the risk crystallizing is higher than that of the insurance company.
Much of it is sold on spurious 'peace of mind' or 'being sensible' grounds or by making out it's compulsory when it isn't.
I follow my own advice on this. I have 3rd party motor, buildings, and that's it.
In a number of years of using UK medical insurance, not had a claim even questioned once.
The US situation doesn't apply here. Thankfully.
The vast majority are using it for non-gatekeeped access to consultants, as I am.
Yes, you can do that. The challenge then is to not end up going to consultants when you don't really need to so as to "get your money's worth".
Why don't you just pay-as-you-go though? Do you get more in medical services consumed than the premiums paid? Or does the cover come through your job as a benefit?
Although my comment to Foxy wasn't specifically about claims being turned down or about medical insurance in particular. More about the overall cost benefit test (for the customer) for insurance in general. It usually fails it.
Like most, I am getting it as a benefit via work. Usually extend it to the family, though. Cheap at the price.
As with most insurance, it is about the percentage who actually claim vs the cost for those who do need it.
The bit about “going to consultants when you don't really need to” is interesting.
Take one issue. I had a shoulder problem. The GP mumbled a bit and offered some worryingly strong pain killers. This went on for months.
I went to a private consultant. MRI, X-ray, nerve conduction tests, blood tests etc before I went into see him. Ruled out all the nasty issues, diagnosed the actual issue and suggested a course of action that fixed the problem. About 5 working days from first call to an actual hard diagnosis based on facts.
The NHS seems to regard testing as something that should be rationed. So my doctor sat there guessing.
Ah well if you get it through work, of course you say 'thanks' and use it to the max.
Re the NHS, my experience is good. I've never had a problem getting the GP to refer me for tests and specialist follow-ups etc.
The problem tends to be speed and a linear attitude to testing.
As in you see a doctor, he orders a test, sometime later you get tested, then you make an appointment to see the doctor, who suggests another test….
One time, when my daughter was in hospital, I was so bored waiting for the results of test round x that I read up and diagnosed the issue. To be fair, it was a 1% presentation of a fairly common issue. But the symptoms matched exactly…. Of course they ignored my suggestion. Two weeks later… yup. If they had simply done all the tests when she entered hospital, I wouldn’t have been doing amateur Doctor House.
My best story of this was a medical friend who developed a peripheral neuropathy, who presented to the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in London, when on sabbatical from his mission hospital in Africa.
He explained that he had worked in a leprosy hospital for seven years in Africa, and thought he might have picked it up. Could they do a sural nerve biopsy?
The professor pooh-pooed his suggestion, did extensive investigations around possible spinal cord compression. After 6 weeks or so they gave in and did the nerve biopsy, and lo and behold...
(The reason that doctors spend so much time learning to take a patient history, is that 80% of the time that gives the diagnosis. Examination and investigations are generally for confirmation).
In my daughters case, it required simple lab culture.
Instead my daughter was in an isolation ward (huge room, not especially isolated) for several weeks, because they couldn't work out what it was.
From talking to the doctors, they seemed to be very parsimonious with tests. Test, result, another test. Are they trained this way?
Every time I've gone private it is *all the tests* first. Then see the consultant. Who may pass you on to another specialist, but it seems rare to need more tests.
The Specialist only knows what tests to order because someone else has done a history first. I speak as a Specialist.
I agree though that lack of infrastructure for testing is a drag on NHS productivity, in terms of delaying discharge or treatment. It is one of the ways that starving the NHS of capital investment makes it inefficient. For example:
"The UK has 6.1 MRI systems per million people, fewer than countries including Estonia and Slovenia. By comparison, the US has 38.1 scanners per million and Germany has 30.53"
Currently for an outpatient MRI brain scan, without urgent symptoms it is a few months at my Trust. Obviously machines alone without trained radiographers and radiologists are no good, which brings us back to staff retention and training.
Given Alba are still around, why haven't we seen a shift to their support (or have we)?
Yes, I asked that a couple of weeks ago. Are Alba pretty vocal as I would expect them to be in Scotland at the moment?
Not seen numbers but supposedly a lot of new members, whatever a lot is.
It will be interesting to Scottish VI if pollsters begin to prompt for Alba in future polls.
Yes they are not being included for sure, certainly more support than is made out and likely to have grown. They at least say they want independence front and centre.
I had an essay crisis last night and typed into ChatGPT “ What are the differences in stage directions between the first and second quartos of Romeo and Juliet?”. I’m very glad that, feeling calmer this morning, I checked its answer because I’m here to tell you that thing makes shit up.
Back to honest work without the services of a dubious AI model for me. I am suitably chastened.
I think you're messing up the blockquotes by trying to reply to multiple posts in one go. I have replied thus:
Ok but you're extrapolating personal experience to the general. To reciprocate in that vein, based on my direct experience, I assess the NHS to be fast, accurate, professional and humane. Nigh on perfect really.
That said, I'm not an 'Envy of the World' person. Neither would I have Healthcare as a top public spending priority.
Although his suggestion that incest was a benefit through work that he liked to extend to the family was … interesting…
Mr. kle4, the fun thing about the Ptolemies was that their twin passions were murder and incest. The latter makes it especially unlikely Cleopatra was anything but Greek (possibly with some ancestry from Iran due to an alliance in the more distant past, but Iranians are also famous for not being black Africans).
I thought incest was a later pursuit? I mean they didn’t jump from being a Macedonian general to an incestuous degenerate family day 1 did they?
Interesting a representative of comparethemarket has just said between 90,000 and 100,000 new applications a month are being received by for health insurance
Which should be regarded as a good thing by all those who want more spending on health services.
Until they try to claim, as there is a whole industry of profit to be had in refusing cover. See Dr Glaukomfleken:
Probably most people would be better off saving the premium into an ISA and using that to self fund on an as needed basis.
That's right. In fact insurance generally is a bad trade for the customer - since by definition the premiums must exceed the payouts.
Unless it's truly compulsory you should only do it in 2 situations: Where the risk if it crystallizes would break you financially. Where your own assessment of the risk crystallizing is higher than that of the insurance company.
Much of it is sold on spurious 'peace of mind' or 'being sensible' grounds or by making out it's compulsory when it isn't.
I follow my own advice on this. I have 3rd party motor, buildings, and that's it.
In a number of years of using UK medical insurance, not had a claim even questioned once.
The US situation doesn't apply here. Thankfully.
The vast majority are using it for non-gatekeeped access to consultants, as I am.
Yes, you can do that. The challenge then is to not end up going to consultants when you don't really need to so as to "get your money's worth".
Why don't you just pay-as-you-go though? Do you get more in medical services consumed than the premiums paid? Or does the cover come through your job as a benefit?
Although my comment to Foxy wasn't specifically about claims being turned down or about medical insurance in particular. More about the overall cost benefit test (for the customer) for insurance in general. It usually fails it.
Like most, I am getting it as a benefit via work. Usually extend it to the family, though.
The bit about “going to consultants when you don't really need to” is interesting. Take on
Interesting a representative of comparethemarket has just said between 90,000 and 100,000 new applications a month are being received by for health insurance
Which should be regarded as a good thing by all those who want more spending on health services.
Until they try to claim, as there is a whole industry of profit to be had in refusing cover. See Dr Glaukomfleken:
Probably most people would be better off saving the premium into an ISA and using that to self fund on an as needed basis.
That's right. In fact insurance generally is a bad trade for the customer - since by definition the premiums must exceed the payouts.
Unless it's truly compulsory you should only do it in 2 situations: Where the risk if it crystallizes would break you financially. Where your own assessment of the risk crystallizing is higher than that of the insurance company.
Much of it is sold on spurious 'peace of mind' or 'being sensible' grounds or by making out it's compulsory when it isn't.
I follow my own advice on this. I have 3rd party motor, buildings, and that's it.
In a number of years of using UK medical insurance, not had a claim even questioned once.
The US situation doesn't apply here. Thankfully.
The vast majority are using it for non-gatekeeped access to consultants, as I am.
Yes, you can do that. The challenge then is to not end up going to consultants when you don't really need to so as to "get your money's worth".
Why don't you just pay-as-you-go though? Do you get more in medical services consumed than the premiums paid? Or does the cover come through your job as a benefit?
Although my comment to Foxy wasn't specifically about claims being turned down or about medical insurance in particular. More about the overall cost benefit test (for the customer) for insurance in general. It usually fails it.
Like most, I am getting it as a benefit via work. Usually extend it to the family, though. Cheap at the price.
As with most insurance, it is about the percentage who actually claim vs the cost for those who do need it.
The bit about “going to consultants when you don't really need to” is interesting.
Take one issue. I had a shoulder problem. The GP mumbled a bit and offered some worryingly strong pain killers. This went on for months.
I went to a private consultant. MRI, X-ray, nerve conduction tests, blood tests etc before I went into see him. Ruled out all the nasty issues, diagnosed the actual issue and suggested a course of action that fixed the problem. About 5 working days from first call to an actual hard diagnosis based on facts.
The NHS seems to regard testing as something that should be rationed. So my doctor sat there guessing.
Ah well if you get it through work, of course you say 'thanks' and use it to the max.
Re the NHS, my experience is good. I've never had a problem getting the GP to refer me for tests and specialist follow-ups etc.
The problem tends to be speed and a linear attitude to testing.
As in you see a doctor, he orders a test, sometime later you get tested, then you make an appointment to see the doctor, who suggests another test….
One time, when my daughter was in hospital, I was so bored waiting for the results of test round x that I read up and diagnosed the issue. To be fair, it was a 1% presentation of a fairly common issue. But the symptoms matched exactly…. Of course they ignored my suggestion. Two weeks later… yup. If they had simply done all the tests when she entered hospital, I wouldn’t have been doing amateur Doctor House.
My best story of this was a medical friend who developed a peripheral neuropathy, who presented to the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in London, when on sabbatical from his mission hospital in Africa.
He explained that he had worked in a leprosy hospital for seven years in Africa, and thought he might have picked it up. Could they do a sural nerve biopsy?
The professor pooh-pooed his suggestion, did extensive investigations around possible spinal cord compression. After 6 weeks or so they gave in and did the nerve biopsy, and lo and behold...
(The reason that doctors spend so much time learning to take a patient history, is that 80% of the time that gives the diagnosis. Examination and investigations are generally for confirmation).
In my daughters case, it required simple lab culture.
Instead my daughter was in an isolation ward (huge room, not especially isolated) for several weeks, because they couldn't work out what it was.
From talking to the doctors, they seemed to be very parsimonious with tests. Test, result, another test. Are they trained this way?
Every time I've gone private it is *all the tests* first. Then see the consultant. Who may pass you on to another specialist, but it seems rare to need more tests.
The Specialist only knows what tests to order because someone else has done a history first. I speak as a Specialist.
I agree though that lack of infrastructure for testing is a drag on NHS productivity, in terms of delaying discharge or treatment. It is one of the ways that starving the NHS of capital investment makes it inefficient. For example:
"The UK has 6.1 MRI systems per million people, fewer than countries including Estonia and Slovenia. By comparison, the US has 38.1 scanners per million and Germany has 30.53"
Currently for an outpatient MRI brain scan, without urgent symptoms it is a few months at my Trust. Obviously machines alone without trained radiographers and radiologists are no good, which brings us back to staff retention and training.
Have you tried using your scanners in the evenings and at weekends?
On Smart Motorways, they actually do work. A marked hard shoulder, regular overhead signs and cameras, and regular refuges. Staff in the control centre switch traffic in and out of the hard shoulder as traffic builds, and can close it if there is a stranded vehicle. Closed to traffic the hard shoulder remains a hard shoulder.
They could, but at least round here, they don’t. They just open and shut them randomly and assign arbitrary speed limits while flashing up ‘report of obstruction’ based on fat finger selection on IPhone Maps.
The people running smart motorways in the West Midlands make Spielman look competent.
I think this is most frustrating thing about the whole business. I'm not particularly against the concept, including all lane running. I'm really against the current implementation, because it appears to have been programed by morons and staffed by demented chimps.
I came up the M6 from Birmingham the other day. Mile after mile of 50mph limit on a quiet motorway, no reason displayed. Eventually pass a occupied emergency bay, then then limit ended a mile or so later. Presumably this was the reason for the limit, but if so they should have known precisely where the incident was, and put the limit on for just the mile before the occupied bay, ending at the gantry immediately after.
Another couple of miles on, now running with no restrictions, someone pulled out of an emergency bay back into the live lane just in front of me. They had a space saver tyre on, which presumably they'd managed to fit in the emergency bay without the stopped vehicle detection system having picked them up.
It doesn't engender much confidence in the system if it's possible to stop in the emergency refuge bay for long enough to change a wheel without them picking it up. If they can't do that, no wonder they are having difficulties picking up vehicles stopped in lane.
Mr. kle4, the fun thing about the Ptolemies was that their twin passions were murder and incest. The latter makes it especially unlikely Cleopatra was anything but Greek (possibly with some ancestry from Iran due to an alliance in the more distant past, but Iranians are also famous for not being black Africans).
I thought incest was a later pursuit? I mean they didn’t jump from being a Macedonian general to an incestuous degenerate family day 1 did they?
Interesting a representative of comparethemarket has just said between 90,000 and 100,000 new applications a month are being received by for health insurance
Which should be regarded as a good thing by all those who want more spending on health services.
Until they try to claim, as there is a whole industry of profit to be had in refusing cover. See Dr Glaukomfleken:
Probably most people would be better off saving the premium into an ISA and using that to self fund on an as needed basis.
That's right. In fact insurance generally is a bad trade for the customer - since by definition the premiums must exceed the payouts.
Unless it's truly compulsory you should only do it in 2 situations: Where the risk if it crystallizes would break you financially. Where your own assessment of the risk crystallizing is higher than that of the insurance company.
Much of it is sold on spurious 'peace of mind' or 'being sensible' grounds or by making out it's compulsory when it isn't.
I follow my own advice on this. I have 3rd party motor, buildings, and that's it.
In a number of years of using UK medical insurance, not had a claim even questioned once.
The US situation doesn't apply here. Thankfully.
The vast majority are using it for non-gatekeeped access to consultants, as I am.
Yes, you can do that. The challenge then is to not end up going to consultants when you don't really need to so as to "get your money's worth".
Why don't you just pay-as-you-go though? Do you get more in medical services consumed than the premiums paid? Or does the cover come through your job as a benefit?
Although my comment to Foxy wasn't specifically about claims being turned down or about medical insurance in particular. More about the overall cost benefit test (for the customer) for insurance in general. It usually fails it.
Like most, I am getting it as a benefit via work. Usually extend it to the family, though.
The bit about “going to consultants when you don't really need to” is interesting. Take on
Interesting a representative of comparethemarket has just said between 90,000 and 100,000 new applications a month are being received by for health insurance
Which should be regarded as a good thing by all those who want more spending on health services.
Until they try to claim, as there is a whole industry of profit to be had in refusing cover. See Dr Glaukomfleken:
Probably most people would be better off saving the premium into an ISA and using that to self fund on an as needed basis.
That's right. In fact insurance generally is a bad trade for the customer - since by definition the premiums must exceed the payouts.
Unless it's truly compulsory you should only do it in 2 situations: Where the risk if it crystallizes would break you financially. Where your own assessment of the risk crystallizing is higher than that of the insurance company.
Much of it is sold on spurious 'peace of mind' or 'being sensible' grounds or by making out it's compulsory when it isn't.
I follow my own advice on this. I have 3rd party motor, buildings, and that's it.
In a number of years of using UK medical insurance, not had a claim even questioned once.
The US situation doesn't apply here. Thankfully.
The vast majority are using it for non-gatekeeped access to consultants, as I am.
Yes, you can do that. The challenge then is to not end up going to consultants when you don't really need to so as to "get your money's worth".
Why don't you just pay-as-you-go though? Do you get more in medical services consumed than the premiums paid? Or does the cover come through your job as a benefit?
Although my comment to Foxy wasn't specifically about claims being turned down or about medical insurance in particular. More about the overall cost benefit test (for the customer) for insurance in general. It usually fails it.
Like most, I am getting it as a benefit via work. Usually extend it to the family, though. Cheap at the price.
As with most insurance, it is about the percentage who actually claim vs the cost for those who do need it.
The bit about “going to consultants when you don't really need to” is interesting.
Take one issue. I had a shoulder problem. The GP mumbled a bit and offered some worryingly strong pain killers. This went on for months.
I went to a private consultant. MRI, X-ray, nerve conduction tests, blood tests etc before I went into see him. Ruled out all the nasty issues, diagnosed the actual issue and suggested a course of action that fixed the problem. About 5 working days from first call to an actual hard diagnosis based on facts.
The NHS seems to regard testing as something that should be rationed. So my doctor sat there guessing.
Ah well if you get it through work, of course you say 'thanks' and use it to the max.
Re the NHS, my experience is good. I've never had a problem getting the GP to refer me for tests and specialist follow-ups etc.
The problem tends to be speed and a linear attitude to testing.
As in you see a doctor, he orders a test, sometime later you get tested, then you make an appointment to see the doctor, who suggests another test….
One time, when my daughter was in hospital, I was so bored waiting for the results of test round x that I read up and diagnosed the issue. To be fair, it was a 1% presentation of a fairly common issue. But the symptoms matched exactly…. Of course they ignored my suggestion. Two weeks later… yup. If they had simply done all the tests when she entered hospital, I wouldn’t have been doing amateur Doctor House.
My best story of this was a medical friend who developed a peripheral neuropathy, who presented to the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in London, when on sabbatical from his mission hospital in Africa.
He explained that he had worked in a leprosy hospital for seven years in Africa, and thought he might have picked it up. Could they do a sural nerve biopsy?
The professor pooh-pooed his suggestion, did extensive investigations around possible spinal cord compression. After 6 weeks or so they gave in and did the nerve biopsy, and lo and behold...
(The reason that doctors spend so much time learning to take a patient history, is that 80% of the time that gives the diagnosis. Examination and investigations are generally for confirmation).
In my daughters case, it required simple lab culture.
Instead my daughter was in an isolation ward (huge room, not especially isolated) for several weeks, because they couldn't work out what it was.
From talking to the doctors, they seemed to be very parsimonious with tests. Test, result, another test. Are they trained this way?
Every time I've gone private it is *all the tests* first. Then see the consultant. Who may pass you on to another specialist, but it seems rare to need more tests.
The Specialist only knows what tests to order because someone else has done a history first. I speak as a Specialist.
I agree though that lack of infrastructure for testing is a drag on NHS productivity, in terms of delaying discharge or treatment. It is one of the ways that starving the NHS of capital investment makes it inefficient. For example:
"The UK has 6.1 MRI systems per million people, fewer than countries including Estonia and Slovenia. By comparison, the US has 38.1 scanners per million and Germany has 30.53"
Currently for an outpatient MRI brain scan, without urgent symptoms it is a few months at my Trust. Obviously machines alone without trained radiographers and radiologists are no good, which brings us back to staff retention and training.
The curious thing was that the doctors seemed reluctant to order tests - is this adaption to circumstances or training?
In the private case, the consultant seems to order everything he can think of, to start. Why?
Mr. kle4, the fun thing about the Ptolemies was that their twin passions were murder and incest. The latter makes it especially unlikely Cleopatra was anything but Greek (possibly with some ancestry from Iran due to an alliance in the more distant past, but Iranians are also famous for not being black Africans).
I thought incest was a later pursuit? I mean they didn’t jump from being a Macedonian general to an incestuous degenerate family day 1 did they?
Interesting a representative of comparethemarket has just said between 90,000 and 100,000 new applications a month are being received by for health insurance
Which should be regarded as a good thing by all those who want more spending on health services.
Until they try to claim, as there is a whole industry of profit to be had in refusing cover. See Dr Glaukomfleken:
Probably most people would be better off saving the premium into an ISA and using that to self fund on an as needed basis.
That's right. In fact insurance generally is a bad trade for the customer - since by definition the premiums must exceed the payouts.
Unless it's truly compulsory you should only do it in 2 situations: Where the risk if it crystallizes would break you financially. Where your own assessment of the risk crystallizing is higher than that of the insurance company.
Much of it is sold on spurious 'peace of mind' or 'being sensible' grounds or by making out it's compulsory when it isn't.
I follow my own advice on this. I have 3rd party motor, buildings, and that's it.
In a number of years of using UK medical insurance, not had a claim even questioned once.
The US situation doesn't apply here. Thankfully.
The vast majority are using it for non-gatekeeped access to consultants, as I am.
Yes, you can do that. The challenge then is to not end up going to consultants when you don't really need to so as to "get your money's worth".
Why don't you just pay-as-you-go though? Do you get more in medical services consumed than the premiums paid? Or does the cover come through your job as a benefit?
Although my comment to Foxy wasn't specifically about claims being turned down or about medical insurance in particular. More about the overall cost benefit test (for the customer) for insurance in general. It usually fails it.
Like most, I am getting it as a benefit via work. Usually extend it to the family, though.
The bit about “going to consultants when you don't really need to” is interesting. Take on
Interesting a representative of comparethemarket has just said between 90,000 and 100,000 new applications a month are being received by for health insurance
Which should be regarded as a good thing by all those who want more spending on health services.
Until they try to claim, as there is a whole industry of profit to be had in refusing cover. See Dr Glaukomfleken:
Probably most people would be better off saving the premium into an ISA and using that to self fund on an as needed basis.
That's right. In fact insurance generally is a bad trade for the customer - since by definition the premiums must exceed the payouts.
Unless it's truly compulsory you should only do it in 2 situations: Where the risk if it crystallizes would break you financially. Where your own assessment of the risk crystallizing is higher than that of the insurance company.
Much of it is sold on spurious 'peace of mind' or 'being sensible' grounds or by making out it's compulsory when it isn't.
I follow my own advice on this. I have 3rd party motor, buildings, and that's it.
In a number of years of using UK medical insurance, not had a claim even questioned once.
The US situation doesn't apply here. Thankfully.
The vast majority are using it for non-gatekeeped access to consultants, as I am.
Yes, you can do that. The challenge then is to not end up going to consultants when you don't really need to so as to "get your money's worth".
Why don't you just pay-as-you-go though? Do you get more in medical services consumed than the premiums paid? Or does the cover come through your job as a benefit?
Although my comment to Foxy wasn't specifically about claims being turned down or about medical insurance in particular. More about the overall cost benefit test (for the customer) for insurance in general. It usually fails it.
Like most, I am getting it as a benefit via work. Usually extend it to the family, though. Cheap at the price.
As with most insurance, it is about the percentage who actually claim vs the cost for those who do need it.
The bit about “going to consultants when you don't really need to” is interesting.
Take one issue. I had a shoulder problem. The GP mumbled a bit and offered some worryingly strong pain killers. This went on for months.
I went to a private consultant. MRI, X-ray, nerve conduction tests, blood tests etc before I went into see him. Ruled out all the nasty issues, diagnosed the actual issue and suggested a course of action that fixed the problem. About 5 working days from first call to an actual hard diagnosis based on facts.
The NHS seems to regard testing as something that should be rationed. So my doctor sat there guessing.
Ah well if you get it through work, of course you say 'thanks' and use it to the max.
Re the NHS, my experience is good. I've never had a problem getting the GP to refer me for tests and specialist follow-ups etc.
The problem tends to be speed and a linear attitude to testing.
As in you see a doctor, he orders a test, sometime later you get tested, then you make an appointment to see the doctor, who suggests another test….
One time, when my daughter was in hospital, I was so bored waiting for the results of test round x that I read up and diagnosed the issue. To be fair, it was a 1% presentation of a fairly common issue. But the symptoms matched exactly…. Of course they ignored my suggestion. Two weeks later… yup. If they had simply done all the tests when she entered hospital, I wouldn’t have been doing amateur Doctor House.
My best story of this was a medical friend who developed a peripheral neuropathy, who presented to the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in London, when on sabbatical from his mission hospital in Africa.
He explained that he had worked in a leprosy hospital for seven years in Africa, and thought he might have picked it up. Could they do a sural nerve biopsy?
The professor pooh-pooed his suggestion, did extensive investigations around possible spinal cord compression. After 6 weeks or so they gave in and did the nerve biopsy, and lo and behold...
(The reason that doctors spend so much time learning to take a patient history, is that 80% of the time that gives the diagnosis. Examination and investigations are generally for confirmation).
In my daughters case, it required simple lab culture.
Instead my daughter was in an isolation ward (huge room, not especially isolated) for several weeks, because they couldn't work out what it was.
From talking to the doctors, they seemed to be very parsimonious with tests. Test, result, another test. Are they trained this way?
Every time I've gone private it is *all the tests* first. Then see the consultant. Who may pass you on to another specialist, but it seems rare to need more tests.
Testing seems like a big bottleneck in the NHS and an obvious place where private providers could be used. At the moment it seems like a way to manage targets by punting patients off to a different waiting list.
I think you're messing up the blockquotes by trying to reply to multiple posts in one go. I have replied thus:
Ok but you're extrapolating personal experience to the general. To reciprocate in that vein, based on my direct experience, I assess the NHS to be fast, accurate, professional and humane. Nigh on perfect really.
That said, I'm not an 'Envy of the World' person. Neither would I have Healthcare as a top public spending priority.
Although his suggestion that incest was a benefit through work that he liked to extend to the family was … interesting…
I had an essay crisis last night and typed into ChatGPT “ What are the differences in stage directions between the first and second quartos of Romeo and Juliet?”. I’m very glad that, feeling calmer this morning, I checked its answer because I’m here to tell you that thing makes shit up.
Back to honest work without the services of a dubious AI model for me. I am suitably chastened.
But the big question is can ChatGPT write a SeanT novel ?
Mr. kle4, the fun thing about the Ptolemies was that their twin passions were murder and incest. The latter makes it especially unlikely Cleopatra was anything but Greek (possibly with some ancestry from Iran due to an alliance in the more distant past, but Iranians are also famous for not being black Africans).
I thought incest was a later pursuit? I mean they didn’t jump from being a Macedonian general to an incestuous degenerate family day 1 did they?
Interesting a representative of comparethemarket has just said between 90,000 and 100,000 new applications a month are being received by for health insurance
Which should be regarded as a good thing by all those who want more spending on health services.
Until they try to claim, as there is a whole industry of profit to be had in refusing cover. See Dr Glaukomfleken:
Probably most people would be better off saving the premium into an ISA and using that to self fund on an as needed basis.
That's right. In fact insurance generally is a bad trade for the customer - since by definition the premiums must exceed the payouts.
Unless it's truly compulsory you should only do it in 2 situations: Where the risk if it crystallizes would break you financially. Where your own assessment of the risk crystallizing is higher than that of the insurance company.
Much of it is sold on spurious 'peace of mind' or 'being sensible' grounds or by making out it's compulsory when it isn't.
I follow my own advice on this. I have 3rd party motor, buildings, and that's it.
In a number of years of using UK medical insurance, not had a claim even questioned once.
The US situation doesn't apply here. Thankfully.
The vast majority are using it for non-gatekeeped access to consultants, as I am.
Yes, you can do that. The challenge then is to not end up going to consultants when you don't really need to so as to "get your money's worth".
Why don't you just pay-as-you-go though? Do you get more in medical services consumed than the premiums paid? Or does the cover come through your job as a benefit?
Although my comment to Foxy wasn't specifically about claims being turned down or about medical insurance in particular. More about the overall cost benefit test (for the customer) for insurance in general. It usually fails it.
Like most, I am getting it as a benefit via work. Usually extend it to the family, though.
The bit about “going to consultants when you don't really need to” is interesting. Take on
Interesting a representative of comparethemarket has just said between 90,000 and 100,000 new applications a month are being received by for health insurance
Which should be regarded as a good thing by all those who want more spending on health services.
Until they try to claim, as there is a whole industry of profit to be had in refusing cover. See Dr Glaukomfleken:
Probably most people would be better off saving the premium into an ISA and using that to self fund on an as needed basis.
That's right. In fact insurance generally is a bad trade for the customer - since by definition the premiums must exceed the payouts.
Unless it's truly compulsory you should only do it in 2 situations: Where the risk if it crystallizes would break you financially. Where your own assessment of the risk crystallizing is higher than that of the insurance company.
Much of it is sold on spurious 'peace of mind' or 'being sensible' grounds or by making out it's compulsory when it isn't.
I follow my own advice on this. I have 3rd party motor, buildings, and that's it.
In a number of years of using UK medical insurance, not had a claim even questioned once.
The US situation doesn't apply here. Thankfully.
The vast majority are using it for non-gatekeeped access to consultants, as I am.
Yes, you can do that. The challenge then is to not end up going to consultants when you don't really need to so as to "get your money's worth".
Why don't you just pay-as-you-go though? Do you get more in medical services consumed than the premiums paid? Or does the cover come through your job as a benefit?
Although my comment to Foxy wasn't specifically about claims being turned down or about medical insurance in particular. More about the overall cost benefit test (for the customer) for insurance in general. It usually fails it.
Like most, I am getting it as a benefit via work. Usually extend it to the family, though. Cheap at the price.
As with most insurance, it is about the percentage who actually claim vs the cost for those who do need it.
The bit about “going to consultants when you don't really need to” is interesting.
Take one issue. I had a shoulder problem. The GP mumbled a bit and offered some worryingly strong pain killers. This went on for months.
I went to a private consultant. MRI, X-ray, nerve conduction tests, blood tests etc before I went into see him. Ruled out all the nasty issues, diagnosed the actual issue and suggested a course of action that fixed the problem. About 5 working days from first call to an actual hard diagnosis based on facts.
The NHS seems to regard testing as something that should be rationed. So my doctor sat there guessing.
Ah well if you get it through work, of course you say 'thanks' and use it to the max.
Re the NHS, my experience is good. I've never had a problem getting the GP to refer me for tests and specialist follow-ups etc.
The problem tends to be speed and a linear attitude to testing.
As in you see a doctor, he orders a test, sometime later you get tested, then you make an appointment to see the doctor, who suggests another test….
One time, when my daughter was in hospital, I was so bored waiting for the results of test round x that I read up and diagnosed the issue. To be fair, it was a 1% presentation of a fairly common issue. But the symptoms matched exactly…. Of course they ignored my suggestion. Two weeks later… yup. If they had simply done all the tests when she entered hospital, I wouldn’t have been doing amateur Doctor House.
My best story of this was a medical friend who developed a peripheral neuropathy, who presented to the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in London, when on sabbatical from his mission hospital in Africa.
He explained that he had worked in a leprosy hospital for seven years in Africa, and thought he might have picked it up. Could they do a sural nerve biopsy?
The professor pooh-pooed his suggestion, did extensive investigations around possible spinal cord compression. After 6 weeks or so they gave in and did the nerve biopsy, and lo and behold...
(The reason that doctors spend so much time learning to take a patient history, is that 80% of the time that gives the diagnosis. Examination and investigations are generally for confirmation).
In my daughters case, it required simple lab culture.
Instead my daughter was in an isolation ward (huge room, not especially isolated) for several weeks, because they couldn't work out what it was.
From talking to the doctors, they seemed to be very parsimonious with tests. Test, result, another test. Are they trained this way?
Every time I've gone private it is *all the tests* first. Then see the consultant. Who may pass you on to another specialist, but it seems rare to need more tests.
The Specialist only knows what tests to order because someone else has done a history first. I speak as a Specialist.
I agree though that lack of infrastructure for testing is a drag on NHS productivity, in terms of delaying discharge or treatment. It is one of the ways that starving the NHS of capital investment makes it inefficient. For example:
"The UK has 6.1 MRI systems per million people, fewer than countries including Estonia and Slovenia. By comparison, the US has 38.1 scanners per million and Germany has 30.53"
Currently for an outpatient MRI brain scan, without urgent symptoms it is a few months at my Trust. Obviously machines alone without trained radiographers and radiologists are no good, which brings us back to staff retention and training.
The curious thing was that the doctors seemed reluctant to order tests - is this adaption to circumstances or training?
In the private case, the consultant seems to order everything he can think of, to start. Why?
Mr. kle4, the fun thing about the Ptolemies was that their twin passions were murder and incest. The latter makes it especially unlikely Cleopatra was anything but Greek (possibly with some ancestry from Iran due to an alliance in the more distant past, but Iranians are also famous for not being black Africans).
I thought incest was a later pursuit? I mean they didn’t jump from being a Macedonian general to an incestuous degenerate family day 1 did they?
Interesting a representative of comparethemarket has just said between 90,000 and 100,000 new applications a month are being received by for health insurance
Which should be regarded as a good thing by all those who want more spending on health services.
Until they try to claim, as there is a whole industry of profit to be had in refusing cover. See Dr Glaukomfleken:
Probably most people would be better off saving the premium into an ISA and using that to self fund on an as needed basis.
That's right. In fact insurance generally is a bad trade for the customer - since by definition the premiums must exceed the payouts.
Unless it's truly compulsory you should only do it in 2 situations: Where the risk if it crystallizes would break you financially. Where your own assessment of the risk crystallizing is higher than that of the insurance company.
Much of it is sold on spurious 'peace of mind' or 'being sensible' grounds or by making out it's compulsory when it isn't.
I follow my own advice on this. I have 3rd party motor, buildings, and that's it.
In a number of years of using UK medical insurance, not had a claim even questioned once.
The US situation doesn't apply here. Thankfully.
The vast majority are using it for non-gatekeeped access to consultants, as I am.
Yes, you can do that. The challenge then is to not end up going to consultants when you don't really need to so as to "get your money's worth".
Why don't you just pay-as-you-go though? Do you get more in medical services consumed than the premiums paid? Or does the cover come through your job as a benefit?
Although my comment to Foxy wasn't specifically about claims being turned down or about medical insurance in particular. More about the overall cost benefit test (for the customer) for insurance in general. It usually fails it.
Like most, I am getting it as a benefit via work. Usually extend it to the family, though.
The bit about “going to consultants when you don't really need to” is interesting. Take on
Interesting a representative of comparethemarket has just said between 90,000 and 100,000 new applications a month are being received by for health insurance
Which should be regarded as a good thing by all those who want more spending on health services.
Until they try to claim, as there is a whole industry of profit to be had in refusing cover. See Dr Glaukomfleken:
Probably most people would be better off saving the premium into an ISA and using that to self fund on an as needed basis.
That's right. In fact insurance generally is a bad trade for the customer - since by definition the premiums must exceed the payouts.
Unless it's truly compulsory you should only do it in 2 situations: Where the risk if it crystallizes would break you financially. Where your own assessment of the risk crystallizing is higher than that of the insurance company.
Much of it is sold on spurious 'peace of mind' or 'being sensible' grounds or by making out it's compulsory when it isn't.
I follow my own advice on this. I have 3rd party motor, buildings, and that's it.
In a number of years of using UK medical insurance, not had a claim even questioned once.
The US situation doesn't apply here. Thankfully.
The vast majority are using it for non-gatekeeped access to consultants, as I am.
Yes, you can do that. The challenge then is to not end up going to consultants when you don't really need to so as to "get your money's worth".
Why don't you just pay-as-you-go though? Do you get more in medical services consumed than the premiums paid? Or does the cover come through your job as a benefit?
Although my comment to Foxy wasn't specifically about claims being turned down or about medical insurance in particular. More about the overall cost benefit test (for the customer) for insurance in general. It usually fails it.
Like most, I am getting it as a benefit via work. Usually extend it to the family, though. Cheap at the price.
As with most insurance, it is about the percentage who actually claim vs the cost for those who do need it.
The bit about “going to consultants when you don't really need to” is interesting.
Take one issue. I had a shoulder problem. The GP mumbled a bit and offered some worryingly strong pain killers. This went on for months.
I went to a private consultant. MRI, X-ray, nerve conduction tests, blood tests etc before I went into see him. Ruled out all the nasty issues, diagnosed the actual issue and suggested a course of action that fixed the problem. About 5 working days from first call to an actual hard diagnosis based on facts.
The NHS seems to regard testing as something that should be rationed. So my doctor sat there guessing.
Ah well if you get it through work, of course you say 'thanks' and use it to the max.
Re the NHS, my experience is good. I've never had a problem getting the GP to refer me for tests and specialist follow-ups etc.
The problem tends to be speed and a linear attitude to testing.
As in you see a doctor, he orders a test, sometime later you get tested, then you make an appointment to see the doctor, who suggests another test….
One time, when my daughter was in hospital, I was so bored waiting for the results of test round x that I read up and diagnosed the issue. To be fair, it was a 1% presentation of a fairly common issue. But the symptoms matched exactly…. Of course they ignored my suggestion. Two weeks later… yup. If they had simply done all the tests when she entered hospital, I wouldn’t have been doing amateur Doctor House.
My best story of this was a medical friend who developed a peripheral neuropathy, who presented to the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in London, when on sabbatical from his mission hospital in Africa.
He explained that he had worked in a leprosy hospital for seven years in Africa, and thought he might have picked it up. Could they do a sural nerve biopsy?
The professor pooh-pooed his suggestion, did extensive investigations around possible spinal cord compression. After 6 weeks or so they gave in and did the nerve biopsy, and lo and behold...
(The reason that doctors spend so much time learning to take a patient history, is that 80% of the time that gives the diagnosis. Examination and investigations are generally for confirmation).
In my daughters case, it required simple lab culture.
Instead my daughter was in an isolation ward (huge room, not especially isolated) for several weeks, because they couldn't work out what it was.
From talking to the doctors, they seemed to be very parsimonious with tests. Test, result, another test. Are they trained this way?
Every time I've gone private it is *all the tests* first. Then see the consultant. Who may pass you on to another specialist, but it seems rare to need more tests.
Testing seems like a big bottleneck in the NHS and an obvious place where private providers could be used. At the moment it seems like a way to manage targets by punting patients off to a different waiting list.
The problem is capacity, as @Foxy points out. Simply sending everyone private won't work. There aren't enough MRI machines there, either.
What it does suggest is that a trade study between numbers of medical staff vs testing capacity would be very useful. Which makes sense to spend more on, and why?
Mr. kle4, the fun thing about the Ptolemies was that their twin passions were murder and incest. The latter makes it especially unlikely Cleopatra was anything but Greek (possibly with some ancestry from Iran due to an alliance in the more distant past, but Iranians are also famous for not being black Africans).
I thought incest was a later pursuit? I mean they didn’t jump from being a Macedonian general to an incestuous degenerate family day 1 did they?
Interesting a representative of comparethemarket has just said between 90,000 and 100,000 new applications a month are being received by for health insurance
Which should be regarded as a good thing by all those who want more spending on health services.
Until they try to claim, as there is a whole industry of profit to be had in refusing cover. See Dr Glaukomfleken:
Probably most people would be better off saving the premium into an ISA and using that to self fund on an as needed basis.
That's right. In fact insurance generally is a bad trade for the customer - since by definition the premiums must exceed the payouts.
Unless it's truly compulsory you should only do it in 2 situations: Where the risk if it crystallizes would break you financially. Where your own assessment of the risk crystallizing is higher than that of the insurance company.
Much of it is sold on spurious 'peace of mind' or 'being sensible' grounds or by making out it's compulsory when it isn't.
I follow my own advice on this. I have 3rd party motor, buildings, and that's it.
In a number of years of using UK medical insurance, not had a claim even questioned once.
The US situation doesn't apply here. Thankfully.
The vast majority are using it for non-gatekeeped access to consultants, as I am.
Yes, you can do that. The challenge then is to not end up going to consultants when you don't really need to so as to "get your money's worth".
Why don't you just pay-as-you-go though? Do you get more in medical services consumed than the premiums paid? Or does the cover come through your job as a benefit?
Although my comment to Foxy wasn't specifically about claims being turned down or about medical insurance in particular. More about the overall cost benefit test (for the customer) for insurance in general. It usually fails it.
Like most, I am getting it as a benefit via work. Usually extend it to the family, though.
The bit about “going to consultants when you don't really need to” is interesting. Take on
Interesting a representative of comparethemarket has just said between 90,000 and 100,000 new applications a month are being received by for health insurance
Which should be regarded as a good thing by all those who want more spending on health services.
Until they try to claim, as there is a whole industry of profit to be had in refusing cover. See Dr Glaukomfleken:
Probably most people would be better off saving the premium into an ISA and using that to self fund on an as needed basis.
That's right. In fact insurance generally is a bad trade for the customer - since by definition the premiums must exceed the payouts.
Unless it's truly compulsory you should only do it in 2 situations: Where the risk if it crystallizes would break you financially. Where your own assessment of the risk crystallizing is higher than that of the insurance company.
Much of it is sold on spurious 'peace of mind' or 'being sensible' grounds or by making out it's compulsory when it isn't.
I follow my own advice on this. I have 3rd party motor, buildings, and that's it.
In a number of years of using UK medical insurance, not had a claim even questioned once.
The US situation doesn't apply here. Thankfully.
The vast majority are using it for non-gatekeeped access to consultants, as I am.
Yes, you can do that. The challenge then is to not end up going to consultants when you don't really need to so as to "get your money's worth".
Why don't you just pay-as-you-go though? Do you get more in medical services consumed than the premiums paid? Or does the cover come through your job as a benefit?
Although my comment to Foxy wasn't specifically about claims being turned down or about medical insurance in particular. More about the overall cost benefit test (for the customer) for insurance in general. It usually fails it.
Like most, I am getting it as a benefit via work. Usually extend it to the family, though. Cheap at the price.
As with most insurance, it is about the percentage who actually claim vs the cost for those who do need it.
The bit about “going to consultants when you don't really need to” is interesting.
Take one issue. I had a shoulder problem. The GP mumbled a bit and offered some worryingly strong pain killers. This went on for months.
I went to a private consultant. MRI, X-ray, nerve conduction tests, blood tests etc before I went into see him. Ruled out all the nasty issues, diagnosed the actual issue and suggested a course of action that fixed the problem. About 5 working days from first call to an actual hard diagnosis based on facts.
The NHS seems to regard testing as something that should be rationed. So my doctor sat there guessing.
Ah well if you get it through work, of course you say 'thanks' and use it to the max.
Re the NHS, my experience is good. I've never had a problem getting the GP to refer me for tests and specialist follow-ups etc.
The problem tends to be speed and a linear attitude to testing.
As in you see a doctor, he orders a test, sometime later you get tested, then you make an appointment to see the doctor, who suggests another test….
One time, when my daughter was in hospital, I was so bored waiting for the results of test round x that I read up and diagnosed the issue. To be fair, it was a 1% presentation of a fairly common issue. But the symptoms matched exactly…. Of course they ignored my suggestion. Two weeks later… yup. If they had simply done all the tests when she entered hospital, I wouldn’t have been doing amateur Doctor House.
My best story of this was a medical friend who developed a peripheral neuropathy, who presented to the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in London, when on sabbatical from his mission hospital in Africa.
He explained that he had worked in a leprosy hospital for seven years in Africa, and thought he might have picked it up. Could they do a sural nerve biopsy?
The professor pooh-pooed his suggestion, did extensive investigations around possible spinal cord compression. After 6 weeks or so they gave in and did the nerve biopsy, and lo and behold...
(The reason that doctors spend so much time learning to take a patient history, is that 80% of the time that gives the diagnosis. Examination and investigations are generally for confirmation).
In my daughters case, it required simple lab culture.
Instead my daughter was in an isolation ward (huge room, not especially isolated) for several weeks, because they couldn't work out what it was.
From talking to the doctors, they seemed to be very parsimonious with tests. Test, result, another test. Are they trained this way?
Every time I've gone private it is *all the tests* first. Then see the consultant. Who may pass you on to another specialist, but it seems rare to need more tests.
Testing seems like a big bottleneck in the NHS and an obvious place where private providers could be used. At the moment it seems like a way to manage targets by punting patients off to a different waiting list.
The problem is capacity, as @Foxy points out. Simply sending everyone private won't work. There aren't enough MRI machines there, either.
What it does suggest is that a trade study between numbers of medical staff vs testing capacity would be very useful. Which makes sense to spend more on, and why?
I heard about an innovative approach that could revolutionise this area. Theranos, I think it was. Wonder what happened to them?
Mr. kle4, the fun thing about the Ptolemies was that their twin passions were murder and incest. The latter makes it especially unlikely Cleopatra was anything but Greek (possibly with some ancestry from Iran due to an alliance in the more distant past, but Iranians are also famous for not being black Africans).
I thought incest was a later pursuit? I mean they didn’t jump from being a Macedonian general to an incestuous degenerate family day 1 did they?
Interesting a representative of comparethemarket has just said between 90,000 and 100,000 new applications a month are being received by for health insurance
Which should be regarded as a good thing by all those who want more spending on health services.
Until they try to claim, as there is a whole industry of profit to be had in refusing cover. See Dr Glaukomfleken:
Probably most people would be better off saving the premium into an ISA and using that to self fund on an as needed basis.
That's right. In fact insurance generally is a bad trade for the customer - since by definition the premiums must exceed the payouts.
Unless it's truly compulsory you should only do it in 2 situations: Where the risk if it crystallizes would break you financially. Where your own assessment of the risk crystallizing is higher than that of the insurance company.
Much of it is sold on spurious 'peace of mind' or 'being sensible' grounds or by making out it's compulsory when it isn't.
I follow my own advice on this. I have 3rd party motor, buildings, and that's it.
In a number of years of using UK medical insurance, not had a claim even questioned once.
The US situation doesn't apply here. Thankfully.
The vast majority are using it for non-gatekeeped access to consultants, as I am.
Yes, you can do that. The challenge then is to not end up going to consultants when you don't really need to so as to "get your money's worth".
Why don't you just pay-as-you-go though? Do you get more in medical services consumed than the premiums paid? Or does the cover come through your job as a benefit?
Although my comment to Foxy wasn't specifically about claims being turned down or about medical insurance in particular. More about the overall cost benefit test (for the customer) for insurance in general. It usually fails it.
Like most, I am getting it as a benefit via work. Usually extend it to the family, though.
The bit about “going to consultants when you don't really need to” is interesting. Take on
Interesting a representative of comparethemarket has just said between 90,000 and 100,000 new applications a month are being received by for health insurance
Which should be regarded as a good thing by all those who want more spending on health services.
Until they try to claim, as there is a whole industry of profit to be had in refusing cover. See Dr Glaukomfleken:
Probably most people would be better off saving the premium into an ISA and using that to self fund on an as needed basis.
That's right. In fact insurance generally is a bad trade for the customer - since by definition the premiums must exceed the payouts.
Unless it's truly compulsory you should only do it in 2 situations: Where the risk if it crystallizes would break you financially. Where your own assessment of the risk crystallizing is higher than that of the insurance company.
Much of it is sold on spurious 'peace of mind' or 'being sensible' grounds or by making out it's compulsory when it isn't.
I follow my own advice on this. I have 3rd party motor, buildings, and that's it.
In a number of years of using UK medical insurance, not had a claim even questioned once.
The US situation doesn't apply here. Thankfully.
The vast majority are using it for non-gatekeeped access to consultants, as I am.
Yes, you can do that. The challenge then is to not end up going to consultants when you don't really need to so as to "get your money's worth".
Why don't you just pay-as-you-go though? Do you get more in medical services consumed than the premiums paid? Or does the cover come through your job as a benefit?
Although my comment to Foxy wasn't specifically about claims being turned down or about medical insurance in particular. More about the overall cost benefit test (for the customer) for insurance in general. It usually fails it.
Like most, I am getting it as a benefit via work. Usually extend it to the family, though. Cheap at the price.
As with most insurance, it is about the percentage who actually claim vs the cost for those who do need it.
The bit about “going to consultants when you don't really need to” is interesting.
Take one issue. I had a shoulder problem. The GP mumbled a bit and offered some worryingly strong pain killers. This went on for months.
I went to a private consultant. MRI, X-ray, nerve conduction tests, blood tests etc before I went into see him. Ruled out all the nasty issues, diagnosed the actual issue and suggested a course of action that fixed the problem. About 5 working days from first call to an actual hard diagnosis based on facts.
The NHS seems to regard testing as something that should be rationed. So my doctor sat there guessing.
Ah well if you get it through work, of course you say 'thanks' and use it to the max.
Re the NHS, my experience is good. I've never had a problem getting the GP to refer me for tests and specialist follow-ups etc.
The problem tends to be speed and a linear attitude to testing.
As in you see a doctor, he orders a test, sometime later you get tested, then you make an appointment to see the doctor, who suggests another test….
One time, when my daughter was in hospital, I was so bored waiting for the results of test round x that I read up and diagnosed the issue. To be fair, it was a 1% presentation of a fairly common issue. But the symptoms matched exactly…. Of course they ignored my suggestion. Two weeks later… yup. If they had simply done all the tests when she entered hospital, I wouldn’t have been doing amateur Doctor House.
My best story of this was a medical friend who developed a peripheral neuropathy, who presented to the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in London, when on sabbatical from his mission hospital in Africa.
He explained that he had worked in a leprosy hospital for seven years in Africa, and thought he might have picked it up. Could they do a sural nerve biopsy?
The professor pooh-pooed his suggestion, did extensive investigations around possible spinal cord compression. After 6 weeks or so they gave in and did the nerve biopsy, and lo and behold...
(The reason that doctors spend so much time learning to take a patient history, is that 80% of the time that gives the diagnosis. Examination and investigations are generally for confirmation).
In my daughters case, it required simple lab culture.
Instead my daughter was in an isolation ward (huge room, not especially isolated) for several weeks, because they couldn't work out what it was.
From talking to the doctors, they seemed to be very parsimonious with tests. Test, result, another test. Are they trained this way?
Every time I've gone private it is *all the tests* first. Then see the consultant. Who may pass you on to another specialist, but it seems rare to need more tests.
The Specialist only knows what tests to order because someone else has done a history first. I speak as a Specialist.
I agree though that lack of infrastructure for testing is a drag on NHS productivity, in terms of delaying discharge or treatment. It is one of the ways that starving the NHS of capital investment makes it inefficient. For example:
"The UK has 6.1 MRI systems per million people, fewer than countries including Estonia and Slovenia. By comparison, the US has 38.1 scanners per million and Germany has 30.53"
Currently for an outpatient MRI brain scan, without urgent symptoms it is a few months at my Trust. Obviously machines alone without trained radiographers and radiologists are no good, which brings us back to staff retention and training.
The curious thing was that the doctors seemed reluctant to order tests - is this adaption to circumstances or training?
In the private case, the consultant seems to order everything he can think of, to start. Why?
Financial interest in whoever does the tests quite possibly.
Comments
He explained that he had worked in a leprosy hospital for seven years in Africa, and thought he might have picked it up. Could they do a sural nerve biopsy?
The professor pooh-pooed his suggestion, did extensive investigations around possible spinal cord compression. After 6 weeks or so they gave in and did the nerve biopsy, and lo and behold...
(The reason that doctors spend so much time learning to take a patient history, is that 80% of the time that gives the diagnosis. Examination and investigations are generally for confirmation).
Citation on figures not included in either one though.
Instead my daughter was in an isolation ward (huge room, not especially isolated) for several weeks, because they couldn't work out what it was.
From talking to the doctors, they seemed to be very parsimonious with tests. Test, result, another test. Are they trained this way?
Every time I've gone private it is *all the tests* first. Then see the consultant. Who may pass you on to another specialist, but it seems rare to need more tests.
"I loved the part where Cleopatra says "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" Shocking scene. So historically accurate."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IktHcPyNlv4
Half a million pounds. A minute.....
Just realised that even wiki calls it “pseudo-historical” 😂
I agree though that lack of infrastructure for testing is a drag on NHS productivity, in terms of delaying discharge or treatment. It is one of the ways that starving the NHS of capital investment makes it inefficient. For example:
"The UK has 6.1 MRI systems per million people, fewer than countries including Estonia and Slovenia. By comparison, the US has 38.1 scanners per million and Germany has 30.53"
https://www.rcr.ac.uk/posts/nhs-must-do-more-future-proof-its-mri-capacity-say-imaging-experts#:~:text=The UK has 6.1 MRI,and Germany has 30.53.
Currently for an outpatient MRI brain scan, without urgent symptoms it is a few months at my Trust. Obviously machines alone without trained radiographers and radiologists are no good, which brings us back to staff retention and training.
https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/royal-navy-to-be-asked-to-step-in-for-scottish-ferry/
Back to honest work without the services of a dubious AI model for me. I am suitably chastened.
"Atiq Ahmed: Former Indian MP and brother shot dead live on TV"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-65290042
I came up the M6 from Birmingham the other day. Mile after mile of 50mph limit on a quiet motorway, no reason displayed. Eventually pass a occupied emergency bay, then then limit ended a mile or so later. Presumably this was the reason for the limit, but if so they should have known precisely where the incident was, and put the limit on for just the mile before the occupied bay, ending at the gantry immediately after.
Another couple of miles on, now running with no restrictions, someone pulled out of an emergency bay back into the live lane just in front of me. They had a space saver tyre on, which presumably they'd managed to fit in the emergency bay without the stopped vehicle detection system having picked them up.
It doesn't engender much confidence in the system if it's possible to stop in the emergency refuge bay for long enough to change a wheel without them picking it up. If they can't do that, no wonder they are having difficulties picking up vehicles stopped in lane.
In the private case, the consultant seems to order everything he can think of, to start. Why?
On the other hand the coronation is giving me an extra paid day of holiday.
Which is worth considerably more than £50.
For many millions of people the coronation is a nice wealth transfer from employers to employees.
NEW THREAD
Or even replace make PB comments.
https://www.consultancy.uk/news/31174/research-government-overestimates-the-cost-of-bank-holidays
even before you get to the benefits of an extra day of holiday.
What it does suggest is that a trade study between numbers of medical staff vs testing capacity would be very useful. Which makes sense to spend more on, and why?