While our three (ring circus) branches of government try to figure what to do with health care, life for us down here in the trenches continues to march on. This means accidents happen, people get sick, and at some point every one of us ends up (at one time or another) in a doctor’s examination room wrapped in a paper gown. For this reason, you need to consider all your health insurance options whether you’re employed or not. Unfortunately, when your job status changes, so does your coverage. Here are the three most important times you need to re-examine your health care benefits.
When You Start a New Job
The sad truth is most employers can’t afford to cover their employees with 100% health care. In most cases, an employer pays for part or most of an employee’s plan, but then the employee has to also kick in to make up the difference. When you hire on with a new company, be sure to read the company’s health insurance policy from cover to cover. If you don’t understand something, ask your employer to spell it out for you. Typically, an employer health care plan DOES cover general doctor visits and catastrophic care, but usually DOESN’T include extras like dental, vision, chiropractic care, etc. If these things are important to you then often you can include them as extras on your policy, but you’ll have to pay for them.
Also if you or someone in your family has a pre-existing condition, you need to make sure that condition will be covered under your new plan. In fact, check on this BEFORE you quit your old job. And if you like the doctors you’ve been seeing make sure those doctors are covered under your new plan. If not, you may be paying for your doctor visits 100% out of your own pocket.
If You Quit or Are Fired From Your Existing Job
Regardless of the reason you leave a job the COBRA Act of 1985 ensures that you can take your company’s health insurance benefits with you for up to 18 months. Unfortunately, you’ll have to pay 100% of those monthly premiums yourself, but at least you’re covered. This is especially important if you’re going through specific treatment at the time you leave a job, or you want to retain your same health insurance while you look for a new job.
Whatever you do, DO NOT roll the dice and go without health insurance. That’s never a gamble worth taking.
If You’re In Between Jobs
If your employer’s health plan is too expensive for you to continue with on your own, then you need to get some sort of health insurance while you look for work. If you’re married, check to see if your spouse’s plan will cover you, at least for catastrophic care. You may have to pay a little extra, but it probably won’t add up to what you’d pay for your own policy.
If you have to purchase your own health insurance you basically have two options; A PPO (expensive, but covers a lot) or catastrophic care (cheaper, but with less coverage). The one you choose depends upon A) How much money you have to spend on health care, and B) How long you anticipate being unemployed.
A PPO is the closest thing your employer provided you with in terms of health care. Typically, a PPO has a family deductible of anywhere from $1,000 to $5,000 annually and also offers co-pays for doctor office visits and prescription drugs. This means you pay your doctor office co-pay of, for example, $25 per visit, every time you go to your doctor. But after you’ve paid enough medical bills (in a calendar year) to meet your deductible, then the insurance company pays anywhere from 80% to 100% of your remaining medical bills, but only for the rest of the calendar year. After January 1 the slate is wiped clean and you start paying toward your deductible all over again.
A PPO plan is pretty expensive because it covers everything from a cold to cancer. If you know you’re going to be out of work only for a short time, then a PPO may be overkill. Instead, you can go with a catastrophic care plan, which has a very high deductible (usually $5,000 to $10,000), and only covers you for major medical expenses, such as accidents or long term severe illness (like cancer). If you’re healthy, and left without health benefits for a month or less, then a catastrophic care plan may make more sense. It’s way cheaper than a PPO, but still guarantees you won’t lose everything if you happen to have an accident that requires expensive treatment while you’re without employer benefits.
Regardless of your employment status you should NEVER go without health insurance. It only takes something as simple as a hernia surgery or a broken leg to wipe out everything you’ve ever worked for. True, you don’t know if you’ll ever need to go to the doctor while in between jobs, but that’s why they call it insurance – because then you won’t have to worry if you do.
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Whether you work at home or out in the big world, when your kid is sick, your life stops. Usually the hardest part about having your kid home sick is figuring out how to be in two places at once: at home nursing your child back to health, and at work earning a living. And even if you have the luxury of working from home, a sick kid doesn’t understand (or care) that you’re pulling double duty.
However, the true challenge isn’t necessarily accommodating your child, but rather figuring out how to hold up your end of work-related responsibilities while you take care of a kid who doesn’t feel well. So in honor of cold and flu season being just around the corner, we give you five tips to help you figure out how to take care of a sick child while juggling a career.
1. Share the Load
If you’re married decide ahead of time with one of you stays home if the kids get sick. You could take turns, or even split the day with your spouse, such as one of you stays home in the morning (while the other works), and then switch roles in the afternoon.
2. Plan Ahead
You know at some point your kids are going to get sick (and usually at the most inopportune times). Before your kids even show signs of a sniffle, create a list of prearranged co-workers you know you can count on to cover for you at the office. This means keeping everyone at work clued in to your projects, so no one has to guess what to do with them if you’re not there. Also, volunteer to be the point person for other people, so if they have to stay home you can cover for them.
3. Share Your Sick Days with Your Kids
Inquire if you can use one of your own sick days if or when the time comes that you need to stay home with an ill child. Many companies these days provide paid sick leave for family as opposed to sick leave for employees only. If you have children this is a huge benefit you may want to consider when looking for a job.
4. Know your Sick Day Options
Don’t be afraid to talk to your boss in advance about what happens if you have to take time off to be with a sick child. You don’t want to be blindsided by unexpectedly having to take leave without pay. In most cases employers will at least let you take vacation days to take care of sick family members, but you need to know what happens if you don’t have vacation or personal days to burn.
5. Budget Your Time at Home
If you hope to any get any work done when your kid is home sick it’s a good idea to keep a collection of fun activities on hand that you can whip out right before you need a chunk of time to yourself. Make sure your bin of goodies contains treasures that are new to your child. (For example, puzzles, single-person games, markers, drawing pads, etc.) That way the fresh items will be exciting enough to hold your kid’s interest long enough for you to at least answer emails and make some phone calls.
However, if your child feels too ill to even color, there’s nothing wrong with putting them in front of the TV with a movie or the Nickelodeon channel. Granted, a steady diet of TV is not healthy, but just like giving a child 7-Up for a sore throat, TV sooths a child into resting without being bored. If you’re lucky it will lull them to sleep.
Having a sick child is never fun, but at some point it will happen. However it doesn’t have to feel like an incarceration. With a little planning, you’ll be ready to combat those cold and flu bugs. (And at the same time, if you’re lucky, get a little work done.)
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We’ve all been there: it’s a beautiful day and you can’t bear the thought of going into work. So you call in with the lame-old excuse about feeling ill even though you know your boss doesn’t buy it. Besides, “feeling ill” is at best only a short-term solution that won’t win you any fans at the office. That’s why if you’re going to play hooky, you need an excuse that will help you save face as well as your sanity. Here are some ideas.
1. (For women) “I have really bad cramps.” Now before you dismiss this one, think about it: Who can argue? It’s such an embarrassing topic that nobody will ever challenge you. It’s one of those things that men honestly have no clue about and women can sympathize with.
2. (For men) “I have horrible diarrhea.” Again, before you dismiss this one, remember that it’s such an embarrassing topic — especially for a man — nobody will doubt your sincerity. Plus, it’s simple. You don’t need an elaborate back story because no one wants to hear the details. If anything, your boss and co-workers will admire you for your honesty.
3. “I’m having an allergic reaction to _______, and I need a day to recover.” This excuse requires a few details about when and where it happened as well as the details of your food allergy, but Google should give you everything you need. The upside of this excuse is that you can use it more than once. The downside is that it requires a good memory and some vigilance: for instance, you can’t claim a peanut allergy and then gorge yourself on Thai food at the next company junket.
4. “My grandmother’s/grandfather’s memorial service is today.” This excuse works for two reasons: first, because elderly people die everyday no one is going to think your excuse is unlikely; second, no one is going to question (or resent) a death in your family for fear of offending you. If you play your cards right, this excuse is good for four free days — one for each grandparent — with each new job.
5. “My wife/husband is extremely ill and I need to stay home and take care of them.” The excuse is a gem not only because you get a day off, but also because it makes you seem sensitive. The only drawback is that it requires an accomplice — namely, your spouse. As such, you may want to save this excuse for a special occasion when the two of you can organize a special three-day weekend.
6. “One of my children got in trouble at school. I need to go meet with his/her teacher and the school counselor.” This is only one of a multitude of excuses you can use with mischievous children. Just recycle the same formula — child gets in trouble, child needs help, parent to the rescue. This works with children of all ages, from children traumatized by irresponsible day-care workers to playground fights to errant teenagers. (Hey, this is one of the perks of having kids — they torment us 364 days of the year and we get 1 day off. Fair trade.)
7. “I took some work home last night and will be going through it today from home.” Whoever invented telecommuting should be sainted. Just remember that in order to sell the “working from home” excuse you need to email or call the office a couple times throughout the day to maintain the ruse that you’re working. The best time to do this is at lunch — that way you get credit for the call but you don’t have to answer too many questions.
8. “I have a doctor’s appointment.” At the very least, this excuse is good for a half-day; however, you can get a full day depending on how you plan it. Remember that people are nosy and they will probably toss-out some open-ended questions about how you’re feeling when you get back. The key is to be vague on the details. Visits to the doctor are much more effective if shrouded in mystery, which allows you maximum flexibility if you need to use the excuse again.
9. “I got pulled over for speeding on my way to work the other day and I have to go to traffic school.” The idea here is that you had minor trouble with the law (emphasis on minor) and you have to pay your dues. A variation on this would be letting your license expire — or at least claiming it did — which means you had to go to the DMV and take a written test as well as a driving test, which could easily take a full day. After all, the DMV has its reputation for a reason. And finally …
10. “My accountant made some clerical errors on my taxes and I’m being audited.” In the wake of the Enron scandal and the demise of Arthur Andersen, this excuse is a sure-thing. The important thing is to make the accountant look like the bad guy — you just need to be there to make sure he doesn’t do anything shady. Once again, the key to this excuse is to make everyone feel sorry for you, not envy you. What are your best excuses for getting out of work? Better yet, what are some of your worst excuses?
My East Midlands Jobs, a site developed again to help you find the best local jobs in the East Midlands region including Derby, Nottingham, Leicester and across the East Midlands jobs.
New York Yoga Spa Wellness Guide.
Esclerosis multiple
Para la esclerosis multiple, buscamos la reduccion de las hiperreactividades del sistema inmunitario y mecanismos que aumentan la capacidad de reparacion y supervivencia de las neuronas a traves del aumento de la segregacion de factores neurotroficos.
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