Personal Health Insurance Quotes In Scotland

Health insurance news - More than one in 10 Scots take 'anti-depressants'

More and more health insurance policyholders in Scotland are taking anti-depressants, according to statistics from the Scottish government.

In the last financial year a total of 4.6 million anti-depressants were prescribed in Scotland which represents a rise of more than 350,000 from the previous year.

Estimates show that 11.3 per cent of Scots over the age of 15 take anti-depressants on a daily basis.

Scottish Labour's Dr Richard Simpson told the BBC the Scottish National Party set a target to bring the use of anti-depressants under control but it has since shelved the plans.

"The fact that the number of Scots on anti-depressants is the highest level since records began - with more than one in ten Scots now on the drugs - is extremely troubling," he added.

According to the Daily Mail figures released earlier this month, prescriptions for anti-depressants such as Prozac and Cipramil increased four-fold in 2009 compared to the last 18 years in the UK.

The GirlAlive Blog » Why Health Care in America is So Expensive

To start with, let me give you an idea of my credientials in this area. I worked for a PPO network in the state of Washington for about three years. Then I spent a year working for a midwestern health insurance company. Then I moved to Scotland and worked for the NHS for a few years. I have gathered enough information at these jobs to understand why an aspirin from the drug store costs about 3 cents, while the same aspirin in a hospital costs $35.

When a doctor opens a general medicine practice, they go around to all of the major health insurance companies and apply to be a Preferred Provider. In some cases, if they’re part of a big clinic, that clinic makes them automatically signed on as a Preferred Provider. The Preferred Provider agreement that they sign with the health insurance company means that they promise to be generally a pretty good doctor, and in exchange, the health insurance company guarantees to pay them for their services according to a set fee schedule.

Let’s make up a doctor. Dr. Smith just joined up with SuperClinic, and so he is on a bunch of Preferred Provider lists. This means that he gets a ton of new patients and he is guaranteed to get paid by all of them. He decides that he wants to charge $50 for every 15 minute consultation. The fee schedule from the health insurance company will only allow him to be paid $40 per appointment, but that’s ok. He just writes off that extra $10 as a business loss, because as part of the Preferred Provider network, he can’t bill the patient for it. If a patient comes in without insurance, he charges them the full $50 and gets it.

A year goes by and the health insurance company revises their fee schedule. The fee schedule is set based on the average that doctors are billing and the health insurance company finds that doctors are charging more than $40, so they raise their rate for a consultation to $50.

Now Dr. Smith is getting a full $50 for every insured patient and $50 for every uninsured patient. He decides that’s great, but he could be making more. If he raises his prices, he gets to write off some loss from the insured patients, and get more cash from the uninsured. So he starts charging $60 per appointment. If you are his patient, and you have insurance, you never even notice that he raised his prices because your insurance company handles all that.

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