Private Health Insurance Guide

Health and apps: a bright future?

One of the things that quickly became apparent when smartphones came onto the market was that their telephone capabilities weren't really their most exciting aspect. In fact essentially what you have with a smartphone is a powerful handheld computer. To get an idea of how powerful, when you compare (for instance) a Samsung Galaxy S2 to a very good laptop from 10 years ago, the phone has four times the ram (a gig compared to 128mb). Four times more processor power, in a fraction of the space.

Photo: Alvin Pingol

It was hardly surprising then, that app stores have been phenomenally successful. With that much processing power to hand and with so much memory, it soon became apparent that like computers, phones would no longer be limited to proprietary applications, and the third party apps that are available range from quite basic stuff like alarm clocks or calculators right up to full-blown video games that really use the phone's capabilities to the max.

But what about health? While there's been a raft of useful stuff such as:

• running and fitness apps like the ones available from Nike+ and Garmin
• medical encyclopedias and symptom information apps
• healthy eating and weight loss apps

Plus loads more. However, as time goes on the apps that are available are bound to become more sophisticated and allow us to achieve more with them. And how that will develop in terms of the specifics is anyone's guess, but broadly speaking a lot of it will be to do with how the app integrates with behaviour.

In a recent article entitled The Weight-Loss App-ortunity on the AXA PPP healthcare website, there are some very interesting thoughts on the future of health apps in relation to weight loss. One of these is that successful weight loss apps will 'sync' with the mindset of the user - and food consumption will be logged as it's happening rather than afterwards. This, along with image recognition that will be able to help identify nutritional value, will help people gain better insight into their eating behaviour as it happens, rather than in isolation after the fact.

 Alongside your house keys and your debit card, your phone is probably one of the things that you always have close to hand, and it's this closeness that makes phones ideal for personalised apps. There's no need to go off and find it the way you would if you needed a pen and paper, and of course with cloud info storage, there's less risk of losing important data.

Writing in The Next Web earlier this year, tech reporter Nick Summers looked at the future of health apps, pointing out the fact that apps currently exist in their own individual bubbles - which is fine for each area of health in isolation, but necessarily means that the bigger picture can't be assembled. Three possible solutions are put forward:

• open APIs, allowing more sharing of data
• one company comes along and makes an app that does everything
• an app comes along that can pull all the data together from other apps (although this would be related to the point about APIs)

The government has been consistent in is healthy eating message over the years - and with the population not getting any younger there's likely to be more strain on the health service as well as greater uptake of medical insurance. 

The opportunity here will be for everyone - government, companies, the health service, and us as individuals - to take the healthy living message, apply it (with guidance and support from apps) and take note of the results.

 

Your weight and heart health

In a news report on NHS Choices earlier this year, some data from the Health & Social care Information centre (HSCIC) was quoted, on the topic of UK obesity:

The proportion of adults with a healthy body mass index (BMI) – defined as being between 18.5 and 25 – fell to just 34% in men and 39% in women during 2011.

 Obviously there will also be those whose BMI is on the underweight side, while presumably the majority of those with an unhealthy BMI were in the overweight group.

Being overweight or obsese isn't just an increased health risk for diabetes and some forms of cancer - it can increase the risk of heart disease too, along with other health problems. 

This week AXA PPP healthcare are holding a Live Chat event online around the topic of heart health with their resident expert who will be on hand to answer any questions on BMI, circulation and diet and their relation to heart health.

The Live Chat is free and anyone with an interest in the topic is invited to come along and join in. So whether you have information you'd like to find out regarding a health problem or if you're interested in reducing your risk of heart disease, pop along and put your questions to AXA PPP healthcare's  expert.

The event takes place from 2 until 4 on Thursday the 19th September (click the link above for the site). And if you can't make it along, you can still leave a question if you register on the site and the heart health expert will answer it for you on the day.

 

Prostate cancer drug debate

Prostate cancer affects arounfd 1 in 8 men in the UK at some point during their lifetime. Affecting mainly men over the age of 50, the average age for diagnosis is between 70 and 74, according to the leading health charity Prostate Cancer UK.

Obviously, given the prevalance of the disease, the charity is working hard to raise awareness as well as provide support for those who have been diagnosed with it. And over in the States, a new study has, according to NY Times Well, reignited the debate about the use of a drug that has been used to manage male pattern baldness but was also found to lower the risk of proatete cancer by thirty per cent. However, the drug wasn't approved by the FDA since there were doubts about the results.

Full story and comment thread here - interesting stuff.

 

Summer health insurance

Summer, and it seems like the world's off on its holidays. Airports are bustling with excited people jetting off to all corners of the world, while many of us who are currently cooped up in our day to day working lives will soon be off on holiday too. beach holidays, city breaks, safaris, trips to vist friends and family in far-flung locations - summer is the prime travel time.

But do we all have the right health cover. And if we do, do we know what we're covered for. Various survey's I've read over the past few years seem to suggest that there's a surprisingly low level of awareness sometimes as regards medical cover, and the following points always seem to emerge:

• confusion over travel insurance and international insurance. The difference between these is that if you're off to live (or study) abroad, even for a limited time, then you are more than likely to require the latter, since the former is a different type of policy
• a belief that the EHIC (European Health Insurance Card) is going to help in all situations. Not the case. The UK government won't be responsible for situations where you're in an EHIC country and have to pay towards treatment. EHICs also don't provide for situations where people need flown home for treatment. The answer? Get the relevant travel or international insurance cover. The Foreign and Commonwealth's health country guides recommend medical cover for trips to just about everywhere, and for good reason. Some great EHIC info here (from Which magazine).
• Uncertainty as to what is actually covered - for instance, emergency dental treatment. The truck here is (of course) to check the small print or to speak to someone at the insurance company when you buy.
• Validity of insurance. For travel cover you will need to be registered with a GP. If you buy a policy but aren't registered with a GP then you're not covered.

Luckily, travel cover is very inexpensive, very simple to buy, and brings peace of mind - which is exactly what you want on holiday.

Healthy dinners

Here on the Private health Insurance Guide we're big fans of healthy eating. And this video shows how to make a vegetarian bolognese. So dig in and enjoy! (By the way, yes, we have tried this recipe out, and we'd recommend adding a little nutmeg at teh stage where the soffrito goes in the frying pan. And maybe upping the garlic levels too). Otherwise, delizioso!

 

Is the workplace driving you to distraction?

According to a report in the mail recently, the workplace may not be the calm oasis of order and good relations it perhaps could be. In fact the recent research that the Mail's story reports on indicates that about a quarter of employees believe that their 'unpleasant' worjing envirinment is adversely affecting their wellbeing.

Interestingly, around half the study's respondents don't leave the office at all during the course of a working day - not even nipping out for a breath of fresh air and a walk round the block. While of course many people don't work in offices that are in or near city centres and may be quite isolated - therefore with little reason to leave the building for errands or to by lunch - it' suprising that as many workers aren't at least going for a short walk at some point.

It's been widely  reported that being sedentary all day can actually be bad for the health - so it's perhaps all the more surptising that this many of the respondents weren't eaving the premises during the working day.

This is of course just one study so it's perhaps not useful to extrapolate its findings and assume they'd apply to the workforce as a whole, but it's still useful for employers of what the commonest challenges facing employees are in the workplace. Many organisations now offer health insurance for their staff in addition to other wellbeing support programmes and health promotion policies.

Perhaps it's time that we all -whether as employees or organisation managers - ensure that we're optimising the healthiness of our working day by getting out and taking in some fresh air, going for a brisk walk at least once during lunch or breaks before close of play and the commute home.

 

Open plan office productivity concern

Open plan offices have been the norm since, well ... since before pretty much any of today's workforce were even born.

It's easy to see why this type of set up is a popular as it is within the world of office work. Open plan means that if you're a manager, you can see everyone quite easily and eb reassured that everyything's ticking over as it should be - rather than have to walk through various doors into individual workrooms. Open plan design is also (reportedly) cheaper - which may well be the case since it does save a lot of money on doors and walls.

If you've ever worked in an open plan office you'll have your own opinion as regards their pros and cons. In my experience they're generally alright although sometimes they can be a little bit noisy - and they can seem a little bit intimidating especially if it's a vast open plan office with glass walls and you're new to the organisation.

In the past week, however, it's been widely reported that the open-plan office may not be the bringer of efficiency that it's more or less always believed to have been - and could in fact be the cause of some fairly extensive detrimental outcomes in terms of employee productivity.

One of the key indications that recent research into the subject has thrown up is that people working in an open-plan environment report taking more days off sick. This is believed to be down to germs spreading more easily on a larger 'shop floor' with air conditioning also likely to help the spread of bacteria.

Another study into open plan work also found that there were disadvantages to open-plan working in terms of lowered motivation and lower productivity. 

So, could it be time for an office re-jig? Certainly, while oprn plan offices have existed for a long time, there have been changes in that time - so what we gave right now will in its turn give way to something else. Perhaps with advances in teleconferencing technology, augmented reality and Google Glass, it's not completely far-fetched to imagine a world where the office of the future is virtual - and therefore (maybe) healthier since there would be less chance of cathcing a colleague's cold or any other ambient bacteria.

Job design and sickness absence management.

In an article on wrokplace wellbeing that was published in Workplace Savings & Benefits recently, The Work Foundation Centre director Professor Stephen Bevan is quoted as saying the following in regards to sickness absence management:

You can do whatever you like in terms of sickness absence management at a minute policy level, but we know that the most impact on a sustained, systemic basis is giving people good jobs to do.

The whole of the article is well worth a read if you have an interest in the topics surrounding HR and workplace wellbeing. And What Bevan is essentially arguing for in bits where he's quoted is a better job design - in other words, employee engagement and satisfaction to be things that jobs should be designed to provide, rather than as reverse engineered policy or simply lip service.

Bevan also mentions a link between muscoloskeletal disorders and increased risk of developing a mental health condition. It's not stated in the article itself - but presumably this isn't a direct causal link - and likely the effect of people with, say, chronic back pain having far lower levels of motor activity and thus being apt to suffer depression. It's nearly always stated in health literature that physical activity wards off depression so it would follow that lack of it could make some people more susceptible.

In the news recently it was reported that a scientific research team from Scandinavia have discovered that up to 4o% of back pain could actually be caused by bacterial infection. Apparently it had long been known that infection could cause back pain, but these cases were believed to be a tiny minority.

What this means is that a large number of chronic back pain cases could be treated with antibiotics. A few figures have been quoted as to how much this could save the NHS - and the figure of £250 million doesn't seem implausible - especially taking into consideration the prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders in the UK and their hefty contribution to long-term sickness absence figures.

Many workplaces do of course demonstrate a real commitment to minimising sickness absence - with an array of employee benefits on offer such as business health cover (more info here), employee assistance programmes, help with childcare, even onsite massage and other unusual employee wellbeing offers. In fact, as the competition to attract and retain the best staff continues, the better the job design and benefits offered, the better chance of having the edge.

Private hospital facilities

Obviously if you have PMI then one of the important features of it is the surroundings in which you'll be treated if you need to go into hospital for any of the things your policy covers.

This video demonstrates some of the facilities offered under private medicine - well worth a look.

 

 

PMI and pre-existing conditions

The way insurance works in most cases is that you pay out a smaller amount of money to cover for eventualities that, if they came about, would cost more. Hence, when we go abroad forinstance, we pay out a few quid for travel cover without a second thought.  And while that travel cover is a minute fraction of the cost of a holiday, it's something that, should we need to use it, means avoiding a lot of expense that would be incurred had we gone abroad uninsured.

With health insurance there is a similar principle - nobody wants to get ill, but if we do then naturally we want prompt care in quality surroundings. So by paying for private medical insurance we're also paying for peace of mind too. 

But what about if you are buying health cover and wish also to cover a pre-existing condition? Depending on what the condition is, it may well affect the premiums for the policy or not be covered - so if you ave a pre-existing condition and are looking to purchase PMI, then it's worth getting a quote and seeing what is available.

In some cases PMI provided by your employer may cover for pre-existing conditions, so if you have health cover as one of the perks of your employment - then check out the policy to make sure.