If only the technological advancements that allow us to better navigate our roads and communities could somehow be modified to help us with the increasingly laborious task that is healthcare navigation. If only that GPS unit could just as easily give us easy-to-understand, step-by-step instructions on the complex world of medical bills, insurance claims, pre-certifications, deductibles, and co-pays. But, alas, there is no easy technological solution to this problem.

Successful healthcare navigation requires that we each find the path that works for us.

Just as the first step to successfully navigating the streets and roads upon which we travel is to understand the rules of the road and the signposts that we may see along the way, in order to succeed in the process of healthcare navigation, it is going to take a dedicated commitment to truly understand the processes that are involved in healthcare billing and health insurance reimbursement. This process includes concerns such as what paperwork must be filled out, what procedures may require pre-certification, what your annual deductibles may be, what, if any, your maximum annual out-of-pocket expenses may be.

It is imperative that you understand each of these concepts. And, if you have any questions, you need to pick up your phone and call your health insurance company and get the answers you need. Insurance companies should be able to provide the answers to these questions, although some may be harder to reach than others. If you are a Kare360 member, feel free to call us directly with any questions you may have. That is one of the many services that we offer to our members, which takes a lot of the guesswork out of healthcare navigation.

It’s also important that you know, while maneuvering the obstacles to successful healthcare navigation, to whom you can turn if you have a problem with either your care, or with your insurance provider. Perhaps your doctor is not providing you with copies of your medical records that you require. Or perhaps you were overcharged and are having trouble figuring out why. Perhaps you can’t even figure out who to blame, the paperwork is so confusing. And, often times, when you make a valiant effort to figure out the mess for yourself, you are constantly bounced from the doctor’s office to the insurance provider, each attributing the error to the other.

At the end of the day, if, despite your best efforts, your healthcare navigation journey does not result in any answers, you are left with two options, pay the bills, whether you believe they are justified or not, or have your bills referred to collections agencies, damaging your credit in the process.

This is yet another scenario in which Kare360 can be your ally. We understand that the process can be extremely complicated, and can take a litany of phone calls and a lot of patience. We also understand that those who are not intimately familiar with the health insurance industry are often confused by the process. This is why we want to make the healthcare navigation process easier for you. Kare360 is here to provide our members with any and all of the supports that they need. We will even make the calls and do the work for you!

Healthcare navigation is a chore. It doesn’t matter how educated you may be, or how good (or expensive) your health insurance may be, there comes a time when each and every one of us could use a helping hand to be able to better understand the process.

Kare360 is your healthcare system GPS.