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Making the choice to leave a healthy lifestyle is often difficult until your eyes have been opened to the possibilities of what being diagnosed with heart disease can potentially cost in the future.
What are the potential costs of heart disease?
Doctors Visits and Procedures
Visits to the doctor, procedures and admission to hospital and medical facilities have the potential to cost upwards of several thousand dollars, for each trip to the center. Imaging procedures are costly and are often required multiple times through the course of a visit to a cardiac health center -- adding up significantly.
Nutritionist Costs and Dietary Needs
Once patients have suffered a cardiac event, it's essential to take the right path when it comes to health and nutrition. Unfortunately, this can include added costs of physical training and therapy, healthy food that is suited to specialized diets and fitness club memberships. Taking the health seriously late in life is costly -- and not something that should be taken lightly.
Health Insurance Premiums
Health insurance premiums are based on the health and the history of the patient. Patients that have a poor health history will experience higher health insurance premiums than otherwise healthy patients.
In some cases, patients searching for health insurance are denied because of the increased risk based on their previous history. In the case that there is no health insurance, one visit to a cardiac specialist can cost upwards of seven hundred dollars -- and that's without any imaging or studies being completed during the appointment.
The Cost of Medication
In the case that you've suffered a cardiac event, it's likely that you're going to be on some sort of medication regimen. This daily regimen can cost several hundred dollars monthly -- as not all of the prescribed medications are covered by supplemental health insurance plans.
Though there is help available for the costs of medication, it rarely covers the entire monthly amount, leaving patients short on medication or short on money.
Sure, there are generic options that are available that can help to lower the price but the long term cost of medication to reduce the instance of developing further cardiac issues can be quite high. Many patients that are unable to work, have few other options, and have difficulty affording the required medication.
Surgery
During the worst case scenario, patients that have experienced a cardiac event are likely going to require some sort of surgical intervention. This type of intervention is going to require consultations with physicians and cardiac specialists, admission into the hospital facility, tests, monitoring and medication in addition to the costs of the surgery.
The entire cost of a cardiac surgery, depending on the circumstances, can be upwards of forty thousand dollars. For patients that require more than one surgery, the costs can be exponential and leave the patient without the funds in the budget to repay the debts that are owed to the hospital.
Taking into account the finance related implications of heart disease is something that patients should consider before they reach that point. Making the effort to follow healthy eating guidelines, maintaining an active and healthy lifestyle and avoiding things that can increase the risk factor, like smoking, can help to reduce the chances that you're going to find yourself bankrupt, sick and in need of medical and surgical intervention.
Author Bio
Sarah Daren is a writer who creates informative articles relating to the field of health. In this article, she describes the costs associated with heart disease and aims to encourage further study through clinical laboratory science schools.
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