Avoiding 26,000 preventable deaths each year: got coverage?

Health insurance is important. 50% of personal bankruptcies are due to healthcare costs. Cancer patients are 5 times more likely to delay therapy. 26,000 people die each year without it.

Health care providers can ask three simple questions to screen for health insurance status: do you have health insurance? is it affordable? does it cover what you need?

If the answer to any of these questions is no, patients can go to healthcare.gov to find coverage.

This past month, students from the Pritzker School of Medicine rolled out the use of health insurance status screening pocketcards, created by Loyola second year medical student Aaron Silver, internist Dr. Ram Krishnamoorthy, and myself. I shared the story of the creation and dissemination of the card on a blog post published on the Doctors for America website today. You can check it out here.