The Worrying Future of Our Healthcare, Part 3 of 3

In my two previous articles on this topic, I’ve pointed out that automation and profit motivation in our health care system have displaced the human element, even though this is a system that is supposed to be concerned for the wellness of humans. How are we to receive what we need from such a system? By creating our own plan that provides for our needs.

Your Personal Plan

The first step is to create a list of what you have needed both from your conventional health care system and things that you have chosen to support your wellness. These will give you your personal health care plan. From that list you then have two parts: the unexpected accident or critical illness and the regular things you rely on for supporting your health.

Your Primary Care Physician

The most important person in your health care team is your primary care physician. It is through their office and recommendation that the majority of your health care is directed. You need to truly partner with your primary care physician because you need an advocate and you need someone in your corner. This will allow you to receive from conventional health care exactly what you need and make it clear what is important in your Personal Plan.

So here are a few suggestions to help you in working with your primary care:

· Your primary care physician is there to advise you. This means that you should respect them and remember that they value the education and experience they have. They know that most of us are basing our knowledge of health on YouTube videos and Dr. Google. You will get nowhere if you are constantly challenging their view. You need to understand their limitations and that they are, at the end of the day, just people. Help them to see who you are and what you need because it will make their job much easier.

· Remember that in the conventional medical system it is your primary care that is the point person for your care. Don’t be afraid to ask for the things you would like to check on such as specific blood tests or genetic tests. They may not be able to justify your requests on paper, but they may be able to provide alternative suggestions to help you narrow down your concerns. In the current system primary care physicians will often step to the side once you are in the hands of a specialist, but if you want to keep their advice available to you, then make sure they are not sidelined during your care.

· It will do you no good to keep things from your primary care, regardless of their views. They are trying to evaluate you, but if you don’t tell them everything that you are doing, their hands are tied. This may include specialists that are in a different “provider network” and don’t automatically communicate with your primary care. It may include private pay testing such as a Gut Microbiome Mapping, Thermography or out of pocket blood testing. So honesty is the best policy, but you do have to come to an agreement with your physician as to what you can tell them in strict confidence without it being relayed to your insurance company.

· You are the person making the decisions but instead of ignoring your primary care, try making it clear that you value and rely on their role in your health care plan for support, advice and understanding. You want to be able to express your concerns and ask your questions but also you do not want to feel as though you are being lectured or admonished for your choices. Most important however is that you want to have the time you need to think about their advice before consenting to any recommendation for further testing, medication or treatment.

· The current system will automatically schedule your appointments with the “appropriate” person, but if you need to see your primary care instead of a PA or a nurse, then make this clear. It may require an out-of-pocket cost, but it gives you a chance to update your primary care while also evaluating your progress. The more they know, the more accurate their recommendations to you will be.

Choose Your Insurance

As you have realized, everything in your health care plan is based on your insurance ... what they will pay for and what they won’t. Each plan covers some basics and then it can vary widely from there. Don’t fall into the trap of choosing insurance based solely on cost. Look for one that covers as much of your personal plan as possible. Someone who is younger will have more need for the unexpected coverage while an older person may have more need for supporting chronic illness. Does your plan cover you when traveling? Can you choose which hospital you prefer? How does your “compliance” with testing and appointments affect your coverage? Narrow down the possibilities by calling them up and asking them about the things that matter to you. Really read through their literature about what they cover. Your goal is to find an insurance plan that matches what you value most and that will allow you to choose your providers.

Once you have chosen your insurance company you now will have a list of the things that you know will not be covered that are still important to you. Don’t give up on this list. Just because insurance doesn’t cover something does not mean it isn’t vital to your health. It just isn’t “essential” by insurance company standards.

Your Personal Plan for Wellness

Which leads us to the role of wellness care in your personal plan. This is the place that natural medicine shines. Conventional medicine is great with acute, life-threatening conditions, but when it comes to chronic illness, irritating symptoms that cannot be resolved or mysterious conditions that do not lead to a diagnosis, then natural medicine has amazing things to offer. This is because natural medicine maintains a broad and unrestricted view of the human body and its capacity for healing. Natural practitioners see illness as the body’s attempt to maintain balance, harmony and health so our purpose is to support that without interfering in the body’s own process.

The truth is that most of the things that will support your wellness and prevent illness are outside of conventional medicine. More people are choosing to include natural medicine in their personal health care plan because it provides the relief and resolution that they need and that they may not be receiving from their conventional care system. This is especially true during recovery. There is a distinct difference between working towards wellness instead of simply treating illness. Working towards wellness is a critical journey that provides the space and time to ask questions while learning about your body’s tendencies, weakness and functions. It requires supporting the body’s own inherent healing capacity and working with that. It is this knowledge that gives you a map for your future health care making it much easier to evaluate your options for wellness and healing. This is what makes recovery successful.

Simply treating illness does not require any interaction with the body’s healing process, instead frequently suppressing it or stopping it completely in order to control the treatment. Often medications that stop the body’s natural process are a part of treatment, but the very process that is being suppressed is also the process that provides recovery. How can you do that and then expect that process to obey the limitations forced upon it while still being fully functional when called on in the future? This is treatment that completely ignores the human element and therefore inhibits recovery. This is where recurrence happens. Chronic UTIs, chronic respiratory symptoms, long CoVid, even a recurrence of cancer.

It is this need for recovery through supporting the body’s natural healing process that has created the emergence of hundreds of types of therapies, medicinals and processes under the heading of natural medicine. These all exist because of the incredible variation in each person’s healing process and their individual needs in recovery. It permits each person to choose the combination that works best for them, a unique treatment process that puts the human element first.

Many people in conventional medicine make the mistake of interpreting these many options as evidence that they are not valid because in their mechanized view one approach should work for everyone. But if you realize that every single person is unique, that each person suffers in different and unique ways, then you start to see that this variety of treatment options is exactly what makes natural medicine so effective. It is providing choices for each individual person to heal and maintain wellness for the human element.

In conventional medicine everyone is provided with the same healing plan, the same treatment option. But the very success for one person is the reason for failure in another. Healing from illness and injury is as unique as a fingerprint and this human element is what determines that success or failure. Natural medicine takes the time and provides the treatment for the human element in the recovery and healing process. Only the person themselves can tell you how valid that is.

There is very little chance that our conventional health care system will begin to operate without considering the “bottom line” and with provisions for individualized care. But thankfully with every passing year natural options are growing by leaps and bounds to fill in the gaps and provide the personalized human element that we all need. Perhaps it’s just a matter of time before everyone will be able to recover and heal.

Karen Clickner, ND is the owner of Conscious Body Natural Medicine, Inc., in Westborough, MA. For more information visit www.consciousbodynatmed.com