Maybe you have had varicose veins for a long time. Maybe one that resolved itself has come back. Whatever the scenario, you are concerned and you’d like to have it looked at and if there is anything to be done about it.

The first person you go see is your family doctor. In insurance lingo, that is your primary care physician (PCP). If you don’t have one, it’s time to get one. The reason why is that for many insurances, you need a PCP to refer you to the proper practitioner. Perhaps your PCP knows something about varicose veins and can help you himself. This would also be good because your PCP won’t charge you as much as a specialist will.
Whoever you see, you will want to find out what the Diagnosis Code the doc is using. This is especially important for those with varicose veins (do you mind if I just call them VVs? Thanks.), because there are numbers that say that your VVs are a cosmetic problem rather than a medical problem.

If the doc uses the cosmetic code your insurance will not pay. That would make any procedure you had done an elective procedure, one that wasn’t really important enough to have done, just because you wanted to. See the difference? You must impress on your PCP if you are in pain, if the VVs wake you up at night, that they interfere with your life or work, whatever the reason is that brought you to see your PCP. You can ask the doc what the code he wrote down is and what it means. If he doesn’t know, talk to the office manager, because she probably does the coding. Be persistent and insistent, until someone can tell you what you want. If the correct code is used, there will be at least some form of coverage. If you crunch the numbers (and you are wise to know how much an office visit and all related charges will run you) and the amount still scares you, there might still be a remedy for you.

One of my reasons for staying employed there for so long was the great health care benefits that I received. I was allowed to continue receiving the benefits for eighteen months. I thought that this would be plenty of time for me to either find another job or get on to my husband’s insurance during the open enrollment period. I decided that I would get a health insurance quote so that I would know if the premium that I would have to pay through my husband’s work was a good deal.

I researched how to get a health insurance quote. I found that there are companies on line that act as brokers for several different companies. If you fill out one general health questionnaire and submit it, the information is then forwarded to the major health insurance companies and they then give a print out of what coverage you can receive for what cost. I found that you need to be very thorough in reading the different health insurance quotes. Some of the offers did not include hospitalization coverage. Some of the cheaper insurance quotes were to supplement other insurance coverage. I found that the less expensive coverage had large deductibles and large co-pays. You have to make a decision if you want the out of pocket costs to pay premiums or to pay for medical care. In some ways it is like gambling. Do you take the sure bet and pay a high premium to know that no matter what happens you will be covered, or do you save the money and pay less of a premium and risk that you will not need the health care. I decided that I did not want to take any great risks. I took the health insurance quote that was mid-range. I still had some out of pocket costs but the coverage was very complete. I think there would be many people that would retire earlier and also work less hours if it were not for the high cost of health insurance.