Having accumulated $638,000 in medical bills in 1994 alone, Bill McNally knows firsthand that your physical health and financial stability need your active attention and participation if both are to be maintained. And you need to begin now, even if you and your family only visit your doctor on an annual basis. Benefits can accrue starting today!

Managing Your Health Care presents specific techniques for evaluating insurance and medical care options, enhancing the care you get from doctors and other providers, tracking health between office visits and managing medical bills and insurance reimbursement.

This book gives you the knowledge and power to get the most out of today's health care systems. The tools presented in this book help you:

• Make a balanced and comprehensive assessment of insurance options. A ten-step decision process helps you select the plan that meets your needs.
• Ask specific questions of HMOs, insurance companies, doctors, and customers of health care plans before enrolling.
• Act as a partner with doctors and other health care providers to enhance the quality of the care you receive.
• Learn exactly how medical billing and insurance reimbursement works for your type of insurance policy. Make sure you get the full benefits. Communicate effectively with both health insurers and providers. An extensive glossary will help you learn the language of the health care industry.

"Managing Your Health Care is an extraordinary, work. It can be an empowering tool for those who want to make informed decisions about our health care insurance and encouters with health care providers. If not unique, and I think it is, it is in the top echelon of tools for the inquiring and discerning consumer"
    —Charles Fahey, Director, Third Age Center,
         and Advisor, White House Commission on Aging

"Managing Your Health Care is a practical, down-to-earth consumer guide. The author has 'been there, done that,' and now we are the benefactors of his' experience. He gives us a map of the health care system in a balanced, non-judgmental format."
    —Diana Lanrent, M.P.H., Stanford Patient Education Research Center

"Managing Your Health Care should be a staple of every, home library The health care aystem is not only confusing, but increasingly expensive. Finally, we have a book that talks about an all-too-overlooked aspect of health care: Finance. With easy-to-read charts and worksheets, a personal touch, and complete glossary, McNally makes it easy, essentially holding the reader's hand through the process of choosing and understanding insurance."
    —Deborah Rogus, Associate Editor,
         Your Money magazine (a Consumer Digest, Inc. publication)

"Managing Your Health Care can save your life and your life savings. Intelligent, assertive patients can really become partners in their own health care. This book can show you how to interrogate, negotiate, and participate in the complex world of medicine. The quality of your care can be better. Your dollars can be better spent. So go to it, it's only your health and money."
    —Dr. John Renner, President,
         Consumer Health Information Research Institute

"Managing Your Health Care is very easy to read and understand. I feel for the first time I understand the range of health insurance and HMO options available to me. How medical billing and insurance work, and how to be more effective in working with doctors. Everyone should read this' book and use the techniques it provides. That's what my family and I are doing."
    —Ms. Jeanne Taylor, Health Care Consumer