Unraveling U.S. Health Care

A Personal Guide

Roberta E. Winter

• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
• Year: 2013
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781442222984
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Health Care Delivery

Unraveling U.S. Health Care is a guidebook to the health care system that provides a timely and thorough explanation of U.S. health care, written in readable laymen's terms. Roberta Winter educates and informs general readers about useful information that will empower their health care decision making. She makes sense of important health care issues, which are often filtered with political and financial stakeholder bias, confusing the health care consumer. Useful tips, explanatory charts, and statewide scorecards are included throughout to assist readers in choosing the best care they can receive.

More than ever, patients must act as consumers of health care, balancing informed decisions with available resources. Keeping this in mind, Winter also explores other options available to patients, including seeking health care outside the United States, and provides a roadmap for medical tourists to the U.S. In addition, she includes Medicare enrollment tips, and a summary of the 2010 health care reforms and implementation guidelines. Bringing all this data together, this book will serve as a resource and guide for anyone who seeks to receive better care for both everyday issues and major health concerns alike.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Prologue
• Part I: U.S. Health Care Overview
• Chapter 1: The Truth about U.S. Health Care
• Chapter 2: Why U.S. Health Care Is So Expensive
• Chapter 3: Evidence-Based Planning
• Chapter 4: Quality and Cost
• Part II: Health Care Quality
• Chapter 5: Quality Indicators
• Chapter 6: Critical Care
• Chapter 7: Patient Safety
• Part III: Resourcing Your Health Care
• Chapter 8: Surgical Tips
• Chapter 9: How to Get Medical Treatment in the United States Without Health Insurance
• Chapter 10: Medical Tourism
• Chapter 11: Health Care for Visitors to the United States
• Chapter 12: Naturopathic and Alternative Health Care in America
• Chapter 13: Health Care Reforms
• Chapter 14: When It’s Terminal
• Chapter 15: What You Need to Know Before Your Medicare Election
• Chapter 16: Health Insurance 101
• Part IV: Health Measures
• Chapter 17: Women’s Health Care
• Chapter 18: Men’s Health Care
• Chapter 19: Children’s Health Care
• Chapter 20: Strategies for Reducing the Cost of Health Care in the United States
• Epilogue
• Acknowledgments
• Appendix
• Bibliography