FAIR Health Consumer Access

Fall2023

Healthcare Proxies and Advance Healthcare Directives

What if a serious accident, injury or illness affected your ability to make decisions? Have you thought about what care you’d want? Healthcare proxies and advance healthcare directives can help you plan your care if you ever lose the ability to communicate clearly. This article will tell you about your options for planning your healthcare decisions ahead of time.

Fall Is Open Enrollment Season

Now that fall is here, it’s a good time to think about health insurance. That’s because fall is open enrollment season—the time of year when you can sign up for a health plan or make changes to the plan you have.

Types of Health Plans

When shopping for a health plan, you may see a plan described as an HMO, PPO, POS or EPO. Those abbreviations are important because the coverage, rules and typical costs differ for each type of plan.

Summer2023

Vision Coverage for Children and Adults

Most health plans cover medically necessary visits to an eye doctor. Sometimes they cover routine eye exams too. But they don’t usually cover eyeglasses or contact lenses for adults, though they may for children. To get more complete vision coverage, you may have to go to other sources. This article will tell you about those sources. It will also suggest other ways to save money on eye care and get free or low-cost eye care.

FAIR Health Launches Cost of Giving Birth Tracker

The cost of giving birth varies from state to state. Now FAIR Health has launched the Cost of Giving Birth Tracker. This is a free, online tool that tracks the cost of giving birth in each state and nationwide.

Getting Covered for Alternative Medicine

Acupuncture, chiropractic care and massage therapy have one thing in common: They may not be covered by insurance. That’s because they may be looked at as alternative treatments, not part of conventional medical care.

Spring2023

Benefits for People with Disabilities

A disability is a health condition that limits what you can do. It can affect your body, your mind or how you grow and develop. Public and private sources offer benefits, such as payments and services, that help people with disabilities. In this guide, you’ll find out about benefits available for children, adults and veterans with disabilities, and their caregivers.

A Window into Primary Care

Primary care is at the heart of the healthcare system. Yet a new FAIR Health report found that almost one in three people didn’t visit a primary care provider (PCP) from 2016 to 2022. Also, just over half of the PCPs during that time were medical doctors. The rest were other healthcare providers, such as nurse practitioners and physician assistants.

Trends in Alternative Places of Service

People used telehealth less but used retail clinics more in 2021, compared to 2020. A new FAIR Health white paper shows these and other trends in the places people go to get healthcare. Most people go to doctor’s offices and hospitals to get care. But the new study sheds light on other, less traditional places of care.

Winter2023

FAIR Health Reports on the Appetite for Shared Decision-Making Tools among Patients of Color

A new report from FAIR Health shows that patients of color and providers have an appetite for shared decision-making tools. Shared decision making is a discussion among patients, caregivers and healthcare providers. It balances clinical options and patient preferences to make care decisions.

FAIR Health Consumer Website Records Notable Traffic to Shared Decision-Making Resources in 2022

In 2022, consumers showed strong interest in FAIR Health’s shared decision-making tools and related educational content. These were recently added to FAIR Health’s free, award-winning consumer website, fairhealthconsumer.org. FAIR Health also saw a rise in the share of male users of its site. Other insights into consumer website user demographics and search habits can be found in FAIR Health’s infographic of year-end statistics for 2022.

Prevention and Wellness Care for the New Year

With a new year ahead, now is a good time to think about prevention and wellness. Preventive and wellness services can help you to stay healthy and get healthier. Many services are covered for free by most health insurance plans.