Family Health: Guide Yourself to Quality Healthcare

Consumer demand, new drugs and medical technologies, litigation, higher insurance premiums, and other factors have all been fueling rising healthcare costs. At the same time, many patients justifiably feel that medical services have become increasingly impersonal. Too often, quality attention from the proverbial family doctor has been replaced by the “assembly line” approach of faceless bureaucracies. How is a patient to successfully navigate this modern maze of providers, specialists, insurers, and so forth and at the same time get the attention they need to maintain personal (not to mention financial) health? 

Patient Handbook to Medical Care: Your Personal Health Guide
offers an overview of the healthcare system from a different point of view and advises patients on how they can take their health into their own hands by becoming both informed and proactive.

As Dr. Richardson eloquently puts it:

In our society we are accustomed to taking a doctor’s word on the state of our medical condition and treatment whether or not we understand it and either without asking any questions or without getting adequate answers to the questions we might pose. Today that might not be a healthy situation. It is necessary to be informed to get the most from your health plan and to get the best medical care from the medical resources available in the healthcare system. By reading this book, you will find out how to take charge of your most important asset—you.

This philosophical perspective is that the patient, insofar as it is possible, needs to take charge of his or her health care self care. 

The book is structured in a logical, reader-friendly manner, providing overviews of all the major topics related to healthcare, from effective record keeping to obtaining quality health coverage.

The first step toward taking charge of your health is keeping accurate medical records and a medical diary. Patients are offered a detailed overview of how their doctor visit should go educating readers about all the various aspects of a routine physical or checkup.  Patients will recognize whether they are receiving quality, comprehensive care, and will know what they should be getting.  The core philosophy is that knowledge offers patients more health options and better health.  Subsequent chapters educate patients about the importance of preventive checkups, common medical tests, the various kinds of doctors and specialists, and healthcare quality.

Patient Handbook to Medical Care: Your Personal Health Guide is essential knowledge in an easy-to-assimilate large print format bound paperback book (adjustable print on e-books). Readers will walk away from the book with a much clearer idea of what to expect from the healthcare system, and what to do to ensure the preservation of their own health.  Best health!