Keeping Down Health Care Costs (Whether Or Not You Have Hypertension)

Depending on who your health insurance provider is (if you have health insurance), the out of pocket medical costs for someone with hypertension can really add up. With co-pays, prescription costs, and continued visits to specialists, you can really be looking at a major cost.

Let's say you work for the government, and have Blue Cross/Blue Shield, with $25 co-pays, $10 generic prescriptions, $20-$30 brand name prescriptions, and a $500 extended hospital stay plan. Most doctors want their hypertension patients to come in at least quarterly, so that's $100 in co-pays, not counting visits to specialist, kidney specialists, sleep specialists, heart specialists, it really adds up. In fact, with just four visits per year to specialists, that's another $100 out of your pocket.

Most of the time, high blood pressure patients are on a daily dosage of some medicine, and if you're lucky enough to get a generic, you'll pay about $20 a month for a generic and $50 for a brand name, which is another $220-$600 per year. For the average middle class family, paying over $600 a year for a medical condition can put a strain on things. Of course, it's better than having no insurance at all.

Not having insurance usually keeps people from going to the doctor, which means they're unmedicated hypertension sufferers. If they do go, then we're talking $200 visits to the doctor, $70 or $80 prescriptions, and specialist visits that can cost in the thousands for a single visit. So, here's some cost saving tips for both the insured and uninsured.

• If there's a Wal Mart in your area, use their pharmacy. They charge as little as $3 for prescription medication.
• Take 1 aspirin daily, it's known to help reduce blood pressure by thinning the blood (you may want to check with a doctor first, but it's a popular thing).
• Find a doctor that charges on a sliding scale, or if you're insured, a doctor that promotes self-care and preventative care, that can save you a lot in unnecessary medications and visits to specialists that end up telling you nothing is wrong.
• If there's urgent care in your area and you have a small medical emergency, whether it's related to hypertension or not, go there, it can cost more than half as less as the ER, and it's usually faster (of course, urgent care doesn't deal with major emergencies, only smaller ones, like cuts, dizziness, things like that).

If you don't have insurance, and have the money to get it, think about it. I'm pretty sure because of all the talking about insurance in this post, a link will show up at the bottom for a free health insurance quote. Give it a shot, you never know. Having the security of being insured can be a huge thing, and the quotes are usually free. If you're insured, it's best to take your medicine and do the preventative things your doctor tells you to, and if you're not insured, I feel your pain too, you wake up everyday hoping you don't get sick.