Life After 50 Expo

Healthy Shopping for Healthy Eating!

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Healthy eating starts with one key activity—healthy shopping. When you head to the grocery store, it is easy to pick up lots of foods that are bad for our bodies without even realizing it. Shopping for a healthy diet can be difficult if you do not know how to do so, but with these tips, you should find it easier to do so the next time you head to the grocery store.

First, have a plan before you ever leave your house. Use the sales fliers to check out the great products that are on sale and take an inventory of your pantry and refrigerator to see what foods you need to purchase. Make a list of all of the foods you’ll need and stick to that list. Allow yourself one or two compulsory buys, but otherwise stay to the ingredients you’ll need to cook healthy meals for yourself and your family for the rest of the week. Before you leave, review your list and take out any unnecessary junk food.

Another great shopping tip to go along with making a list is to shop for a week at a time, or even longer if you have a large freezer. When you have to run to the grocery store every day, you are more likely to pick up junk food items every time you make a trip, and before you know it, your snack supply will be overflowing. You can shop for a week or two in advance by taking a day to plan meals for the week and packaging fresh product to be frozen.

When you’re shopping, it is also important to read the label. Try to avoid purchasing brand name items simply because they are brand name or store brand items simply because they are less expensive. Actually look at the product’s nutritional value and try to get the most nutrients for your money. When you eat higher quality foods, you’ll feel more full and, in turn, eat less, so this really is the best way to bargain shop.

If you are just shopping for yourself, you should also consider picking up a basket at the door instead of getting a shopping cart. The biggest problem with health and grocery shopping is grabbing junk food items that you don’t really need. If you have a small basket, you simply won’t have room for chocolate brownies and ice cream with your load of other foods, so you’ll pass them by.

Last tip, don’t forget to consider drinks into your healthy shopping plan. Most people don’t realize it, but sodas, punches, and beers can have many empty calories and are generally bad drink choices. Instead, look at the labels and choose diet drinks, water and sports drinks, or natural fruit juices, like apple juice. With these tips, healthy eating—and shopping—should be much easier!

Medicare Reminder

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If you have a Medicare Advantage plan or a stand-alone Part D plan, you should receive an Annual Notice of Change (ANOC) and/or Evidence of Coverage (EOC) from your plan. You should receive these notices by the end of September and they will explain any changes that your plan will be making in 2015. This includes information about changes to your plan’s list of covered drugs (formulary), health benefits, and/or premium costs. Plans are allowed to change their cost and coverage rules from year to year, so it’s important for you to read mail from your plan to see if there are any changes that affect you. If you did not receive this information, call your plan to request a copy. If you are dissatisfied with any changes, you can make changes to your coverage during Fall Open Enrollment, which is from October 15 – December 7.

“This information is republished with permission from the Medicare Rights Center. For more info visit www.medicarerights.org.”

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

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Marci’s Medicare Answers

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Dear Marci,

I recently found out that my doctor billed Medicare for several medical tests that I never actually received. What steps can I take going forward to protect myself from Medicare fraud?

– Grace (Anchorage, AK)

Dear Grace,

Medicare fraud happens when doctors, providers, or individuals deceive Medicare into paying more than it should, or paying for services when it should not. This is against the law, and it can put the health and wellbeing of Medicare beneficiaries at risk.

There are steps that you can take to protect yourself from Medicare fraud and ensure that you still receive appropriate medical care. Here are some important tips:

1.    Protect your medical information: This includes your Medicare number, Social Security number, and medical information. Only give this information to your doctors and health care providers. Be careful about giving your personal information to people who offer free services or other incentives in return for your Medicare number or Social Security number. Similarly, if people who are not medical professionals want to see your medical records or recommend medical services, do not let them. Social Security and Medicare will never call you to ask you for personal information, so be wary of scammers posing as government agencies or banks trying to request this information.

2.    Do not accept services that you do not need: Some dishonest providers might pressure you into receiving tests or services that are not medically necessary. Billing Medicare for unnecessary services and equipment is a type of Medicare fraud. You can report pressure from health care providers to receive extra services.

3.    Review your Medicare Summary Notices (MSN)or Explanation of Benefits (EOB): Reviewing these documents can help you to verify that you actually received the services listed. For example, if your Explanation of Benefits from your Part D plan indicates that the plan paid for a medication you didn’t receive, this could be a sign of fraud. Keep in mind that it can be difficult to tell whether charges are legitimate if you received services from several doctors around the same time or you take many medications. One way to keep track is to use a health care journal to record all medical services and items you receive.  You can compare your notes to notices above to help you detect possible fraud.

4.    Verify information that you receive aboutMedicare Advantage and Part D plans:  You should verify everything that a plan broker tells you regarding a Medicare Advantage plan. For example, if a broker tells you that your doctor is in the plan’s network, call your doctor to confirm this. If you feel that you are receivingfalse information from a Medicare Advantage plan or Part D plan representative, you can contact 800-Medicare to verify a plan’s information. Medicare Advantage plans must follow specific guidelines when marketing their plans, and cannot provide you misleading or false information to get you to enroll in their plan.

If you receive a suspicious or confusing MSN or EOB, contact your provider or pharmacy first to ask for an explanation. Medical claims can be complicated to read, and reviewing them with your provider or pharmacy might reveal that the charges were legitimate or that a billing error was to blame.

If you are still unsatisfied with the answer you receive, or if you suspect fraud, you should report the issue. It is helpful to have as many details as possible when reporting suspected fraud, such as specific names, locations, and times. If you have Original Medicare, you can call 800-Medicare to report the suspected fraud. If you have a Medicare Advantage plan, you can call your plan directly. Regardless of whether you have Original Medicare or a Medicare Advantage plan, you can contact the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) at 800-447-8477. When Medicare investigates the potential fraud, your name will not be used if you do not want it to be. In many cases, Medicare will be unable to confirm the occurrence of fraud without your help.

-Marci

Water – The Best Natural Drink !

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There are a lot of commercial health drinks out there in the market nowadays. They claim that they provide cure for illnesses, even citing studies of their drastic impact on cancer. But amidst these countless choices, we may e forgetting about nature’s most important “cocktail” – water.

Some health professionals say that most of the people nowadays are dehydrated and they are not aware of it. People are more interested in drinking coffee, tea and sodas which also contains caffeine. About 83 percent of our blood is made of water. Muscles are made of 75 percent water, while bone is 22 percent composed of water. Actually, an average person who weighs around 150 lbs., contains 40 to 50 quarts of water. That makes 2/3 of our body weight are from water.

Drinking water also retains the fluids necessary for the body to function. When the body gets less water, it begins to hold on to each drop of fluid and water it has. Water is stored outside the cells making feet, legs and hands to swell. To overcome this problem, the best thing to do is to drink plenty of water. The stored water outside the cells will be released.

Aside from being completely necessary for biological processes, drinking the recommended 8 glasses of water a day will definitely give you significant health improvements. It would improve your energy, increase mental and physical performance, remove toxins and other waste products from the body.

Water also helps you to get glowing and healthy-looking skin. Water acts as a natural body purifier, this disposes the toxins out of your body. There are even studies citing water intake as an important factor in weight loss. When a body does not have enough water, the fat cells cannot be easily metabolized. This “rubber-like” fat cell is harder to lose. Water can also suppress your hunger.

Not drinking enough water is also the number one reason of fatigue. There are also studies that showed that drinking the recommended 8 glasses of water a day relieves most patients from back and joint pain. It even has effects on our memory and ability to concentrate. If you lack water intake, you can have short-term memory, trouble with your basic math and focusing on what you have in front of you, either a computer screen or a page you are handling.

Aside from regular tap water, you can see a lot mineral water and even alkaline water in the stands. Compared to ordinary tap water, alkaline water has higher pH level. Alkaline water is said to have help in neutralizing acids and remove toxins from the body. Alkaline water drinkers and proponents believed that most of what we eat and drink produces acid waste. Aside from this, they also say that alkaline water gives electrochemical activity to the cell.

To keep the body hydrated, you do not have to drink from your water bottle every time. Food is also source of your 20 percent total water intake. The remaining 80 percent comes from other beverages. Fruits and vegetables also contain a lot of water. Oranges would have 87 percent of composed of water.

Even if there are people promoting alkaline water, there are still other health care professionals who thinks that we should just stick to regular, plain water. Whether it is alkaline water or normal water, we could not deny that it is one of the wonders of Mother Nature. Over centuries, water has been the natural health drink for us.

Health and Fitness Self Improvement Tips

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Here are a few tips for living a healthy lifestyle.

There’s no better place to start self-improvement than with your health. After all, health is one of the most important aspects of life. Taking care of your health is the first step on the road to self-improvement.

1. Eat breakfast- start the day off right with a quick morning breakfast. Fruit and yoghurt, granola and milk or whole-wheat toast and peanut butter will ensure you start on the right foot.

2. Relax in the morning- get up a couple minutes early and savour that extra time. Enjoy a cup of coffee while watching the sun rise; take a few extra minutes to yourself in the shower; or go for a quick brisk walk around the block to get your heart pumping. There’s nothing worse than starting your day in a rush. A few minutes in the morning can make a world of difference. [Read more…]