It certainly is a significant time to be involved in health and wellness. With the government shutdown finally ended, and looking forward to America’s future in health care, here at Breathe Life we are excited about the opportunities the Affordable Care Act will provide.
Admission into Breathe Life is based on insurance. Unfortunately, without insurance, patients previously had not been able to come to Breathe Life and access our facilities and treatment. Now, this is all changing. Breathe Life’s CEO, Deb Hughes, says that the Affordable Care Act “opens up the door to hundreds if not thousands of clients to have treatment.â€
There are important things to note when looking at insurance plans. Clients can come to Breathe Life provided they have an insurance policy, but the policy cannot be an HMO (Health Maintenance Organization) plan. When switching over to Obamacare, there are “exchange servicesâ€: people will have choices of the kind of insurance they choose. As long as a patient is a member of a PPO (Preferred Provider Organization), it doesn’t matter if they choose a bronze, silver, gold, or platinum plan: They can come to Breathe Life.
Hughes reiterated how important it will be for people to know their options and choose carefully. “That’s what’s so important for people to understand,†she says. “When they’re looking at the exchange, they read the benefits, they look at them, they understand that the HMOs are governed by the insurance company and they are able to understand they have a choice in how they are treated.†Essentially, there are a lot of options to choose from, but as long as a patient has PPO and not HMO insurance, they are eligible for admission to Breathe Life.
With the new insurance policies, people will have access to more treatment options, and therefore will have the power to choose the course of their treatment. “[People] need to have freedom in their health care to go where they want to go for their treatment,†Hughes declares.
Beyond the choices people make in their treatment, the Act will help people who struggle with addiction in other ways, too. Hughes points out that in the Affordable Act, there are mandatory drug and alcohol benefits. This is a huge piece of the puzzle that will encourage more people to seek treatment, whereas before these kinds of benefits were previously not required of the insurance companies.
At Breathe Life, we know the Affordable Care Act will help many more people benefit by our treatments. We’re excited to provide care to more people in need and that these individuals will have greater freedom and control over their own health.
