beniebuzz blog

“It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye!” You probably heard this from your mom when you were a kid. Do you find yourself repeating this rich tradition with your kids? The last thing on your mind at the time was probably vision insurance.

It’s open enrollment time for many employees and vision benefits might be one of your choices. Let’s be honest: most of us would rather poke our eye with a stick than go through the selection process!  

Wondering why 2pac is the image for this post?  Read on....

Are you experiencing annual enrollment for health insurance right about now?  Many are, so last week, we started this series on tips for saving on healthcare costs!

Click here to read the intro and the 3 tips from our first post in this series!  

Here’s 3 more tips….

4. Know the coverage and benefits of your plan

Americans are GREAT consumers…arguably the best in the world!  In 2011, we spent almost 18% of the gross domestic product on health care – more than any other nation in the world! Then why are we SO bad at understanding our health care spending?

OK, so some big stuff is going down with Obamacare that WILL affect you.  If you’re like me, you have a hard time caring about super complicated government bills that may or may not happen or affect you.  However, Joel Ray, CEO of a 100-employee specialty healthcare company, has this to say:  “Regardless of one's political beliefs, our country is about to undergo a generational change in the delivery of healthcare to the American people.“  

Do you have your mom on speed dial for those moments when you realize you don’t know it all?  I’m often amazed by my mom’s ability to do such a great job balancing work, church, family, sports, friends and yes, even my dad. There is no owner’s manual for kids - it’s all a judgment call. So, why not call someone with good judgment who raised six, my mom!  

Before we get into the 5 tips that helped her raise our family, her first advice is this: Love and do all things out of love for your children!

1. Patience is not just a virtue!  

According to the US Center for Disease Control, insufficient sleep is a public health epidemic!  Yikes!  If you’re like me, you don’t give much thought to it (except when the 5am wake-up call comes!).  Most of the time, I consider it nothing more than an on-off switch - like the ones on our smart phones - that the body flips when it needs to take a break from our over-scheduled lives.

Do you post comments on articles?  Last week, the #1 read and shared Wall Street Journal article generated 985 comments (and counting…). It happened to be about a subject that I’ve been watching (curiously) for more than three years.  “Why the Doctor Can’t See You” discussed the growth of concierge medicine.