Houston, Texas, November 18, 2012 — The Greater Houston Coalition
of Healthy Futures is celebrating the success of a great turn out at the
Healthy Lives, Healthy Futures Symposium.
The big story for the weekend was the protection of customers instead of
companies, ways to prevent the misuse and abuse of Medicare and the elimination
of rejection from insurance plans because of preexisting conditions.
Although the Affordable Care
Act does not officially go into effect until the year 2014, some parts of the
law are already active and are affecting the lives of Houstonians now. For the next sixteen months an estimated
5,600 people can and will receive insurance because insurance companies can no
longer exclude children with preexisting conditions, like asthma or diabetes. Small businesses may be able to receive a tax
credit up to $7,400 for providing healthcare to employees and an estimated 3.3
million will most likely be eligible for Medicaid.
Houstonians were happy and
are looking forward to the Affordable Care Act ending the abuse and misuse of
Medicare made by practices, providers and agents which in turn will actually strengthen
Medicare. For example, right now Medicare pays prescription costs for senior
citizens up to a certain dollar amount.
After that dollar amount, the senior is then forced to pay out of pocket
for their prescriptions until Medicare kicks back in and pay for prescriptions
again. This effect is called the “doughnut hole” and with the Affordable Care Act we can expect for the doughnut holes to be
phased out by the year 2020.
Each day of the symposium was
focused on a specific audience. Friday
was for medical providers, Saturday the religious community, Sunday included
the entire Houston community and Monday was for behavioral and mental health
providers.
A few Texas celebrities and
government officials were in attendance at the symposium. Fox 26 news anchor, Jose Grinan, acted as
Master of Ceremonies and stressed how important it is to take care of
ourselves. Health and Human Services
Regional Director, Marjorie Petty, educated providers on Act’s impact on women
and women’s health service issues.
Other featured speakers were.
Executive Director of Faithful Reform in Health Care, Reverend Linda Walling
engaged audiences in interactive conversations and answered direct questions
about the upcoming healthcare reform.
Mr. Michael Duffy warned behavioral health providers to become Medicaid
licensed, to integrate with a health care partner and discussed the challenges
of certified electronic health records.
###
No comments:
Post a Comment