Hey I can choose a different medical insurance per 1st of january if I want (and I do) and now what comes into the affordable range is one with a maximum of 12 treatments physio per year refunded. Does it make any sense to get that? Isn't 12 treatments very little?
How many are usually needed for something serious?

I suggest you go and ask your doctor. After all, that is one physio treatment a month, which may well be all your poorly ankle will need. The physio will give you exercises to do at home, and that may be ample.

Can you get any further treatments on whatever the Dutch equivalent of the national health service is called? Again, worth asking your doctor what the options are.

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Mrs Redboots
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I love my computer because my friends live in it!
Ice dancers have lovely big curves!

A lot of it depends on your determination to get better, after the plaster came off, I had physio twice a week for 1 month, the physio said she knew that she wouldn't have me for long because of my sheer determination to do EVERYTHING that she told me to do, being a skater you will have that kind of determination and should be back to normal in no time.

Get well soon.

Samba

I probably did not have more than 12 treatments for my broken ankle mainly b/c I could not handle going to the therapist after work all of the time. For a while I went 2-3x/wk. I did all of the exercises he prescribed at home even after I stopped going. Got back on the ice as soon as I could. I started out toddling like a little kid. It was a tough road back, but every injury is different.

Kay

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OK so 12 times is probably worth getting insured for.
Thanks!

For my new hip I was only given 6 exercises and told to use my hip. I had a list of restrictions for the first 6 weeks and another set of restrictions until week 16. I was told just to walk (< 2miles) and I didn't really need PT. My doctor was English, and while I do go to PT and pilates I work with my regular people who understand that I am a skater. So 12 seems like enough but depends on your needs in the US it seems 20 pt sessions is the norm.

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For my ankle, I think I did about 8-10 sessions of PT. For my knee injury, I did more - maybe 12-14? I think 12 sessions a year is good to be insured for.
My insurance covers 60 PT sessions a year - hope I don't ever have to use that many

If that's your only affordable option, I'd rather be insured for 12 than none.

Since you asked for something serious- when I broke my neck I did therapy as an outpatient on this schedule- physical therapy 3 times a week for 3 months, and occupational therapy 1 time a week for 3 months as an outpatient. I think occupational therapy didn't count the same- so that's about 36 sessions- and that probably gets to the extreme. I had to work back from temporary paralysis. The insurance covered the week of inpatient therapy different, so I didn't count that in there.

I think when my sister tore her ACLs she did once a week for 2 months- so 8 sessions? I think for most injuries 12 will cover you.

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-Jessi
What I need is a montage...
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I have been having physio off and on for my sprained ankle since August, 2006. Our plan is generous but I have even run it out of physio money for this year. I WISH I could buy more coverage!

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Dianne
(A.O.S.S.? Got it BAD! )

When I went to physio for me knee, I went twice a week for either 2 or 3 months, dont remember now. But a lot of it are exercises you can do at home or at the gym. I would take it, just because 12 sessions are better than no sessions.

I'm going to disagree a little bit with what the others said. When I was recovering from my broken ankle, I had a LOT of PT. And I did everything they told me to do at home, and as soon as I could drive and they said it was okay, I would go to my gym and ride the stationary bike. The benefit for me with the actual PT sessions was the stretching of my ankle that they could do much better than me. I don't think I would have gotten as much range of motion back as I did if I hadn't had all that PT. Even after my second surgery, I still had around 10 or 12 sessions.

But my conclusion is still the same as everyone else, better to be insured for it than not, whether you think 12 sessions is a lot or a little.

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August 22, back on the ice!

From what you said it sounds like you like the insurance except that they only refund up to 12 sessions. If you have an option for one that refunds more sessions, and you know you're having surgery, I suggest you find one that gives you more PT time.

I had something relatively minor (plantar faciitis in one foot) and I went 3x a week for 2 months. They assigned exercises but they also had equipment I just didn't have access to at home. Plus, they did this electric shock thing along with a massage that worked wonders.

There's really no substitute for good PT. They have much more expertise than doctors when it comes to the nuts and bolts of how weight distributes on your feet & legs in my experience.

Okay that post made no sense, in retrospect. Here's a rephrasing.

I hate my current insurer, cuz this year they didn't pay for stuff with arguments like, not chronic enough, that kinda stuff.

So my options are either, take my chances with an other insurance (who have been known to refuse some stuff to other people I know too) or, much like I've done with my dental insurance for the past 4 years, go for the cheapest insurance possible (maximum own risk, only mandatory coverage - which still covers all basics) and use the extra money (thrice as cheap) to pay for whatever *I* think is necessary, instead of what my insurance thinks is necessary...

So I was kinda trying to figure out what sum that might add up to, for which I needed to know how much sessions to expect, kind of. Which you guys helped out great with! Thanks.

Something to bear in mind is that a new insurer most likely wouldn't cover you for treatment for an injury which pre-dated the start of their cover. They certainly wouldn't in this country. But the extra cover might still be worth it if you had another injury.

Fiona

No over here they're by law obliged to cover for everything that pre-dates. Otherwise, how would ill people ever get medical insurance?

You hit the nail on the head right here.

Most insurers will not cover pre-existing conditions in the US. Some will, like if you switch jobs, but you have to adopt the insurance within a certain time period of accepting the job, etc- there are LOTS of restrictions.

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-Jessi
What I need is a montage...
Visit my skating journal or my Youtube videos (updated with 2 new videos Sept 26, 2009)

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAAAAA!!!

Yes, I live in the US, where you *can* be denied medical insurance (or, alternatively, given medical insurance that is so expensive [to cover whatever your preexisting condition] as to be unaffordable) on the basis of "I had a wart removed once." I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP. (Yes, some states require insurers to cover you regardless, but they don't say how much the insurers can rob from you to pay their premiums.)

I had 6 weeks of PT for my ankle, 3x/week, which I guess makes 18? Twelve sessions sounds like a good chunk--of course, we should all just hope that none of us gets a condition next year that requires PT!

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"Go wash an elephant if you wanna do something big." -Baby Gramps

Exactly. In the U.S., insurance is all about minimizing risk. . . for the insurance company!

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"You don't have to put an age limit on your dreams." - Dara Torres, 41, after her 2nd medal at the 2008 Olympics

Ah so Moore wasn't exagerrating?

Well here it's kind of quickly going in that direction too, they're now busy splitting it up by age category (since obviously younger people are less costly than elder ones) - that is, if you're young you can get a cheaper insurance, and the normal insurances are rising in price steeply every single year. Lots of people honestly feel they are becoming unaffordable. Meanwhile, you as a citizen still *have* to be insured, a law says so. Lots of people don't comply with that (there's ways around it, even though an insurance company can't just cancel your insurance, they must transfer it to an other insurer) and now there's a whole state witchhunt to hunt those people down. Also half the Netherlands feels like they're paying all these expensive insurances just so that insurance companies can pay for new hips for 95-year-olds, endless IVF treatments, and (I kid you not) pilgrimages (!). But dental care of physiotherapy or vaccinations, no those we have to pay ourselves, or get an extra insurance package, which then in turn includes a scale of other "alternative" medicine means varying from homeopathy - which I already don't believe in - to things just an inch short of voodoo...
All the while, insurance companies determine how much doctors make, especially the first line of doctors (you know the ones you go to with a sprained ankle, flu, morning-after pill, bladder infection, diarrhea etc) and they're using this to pressure doctors into prescribing less medication. Doctors who prescribe too much, too often or too expensive medication get cut on their wages. They've also pressured hospitals into administering cheaper drugs to cancer patients, cutting survival chances by as much as half in some cases... And yeah there was a public outrage at that, but that hasn't changed anything.

Insurance companies getting any sort of power is just pure evil if you ask me.

What do warts have to do with anything by the way?

I thought all EU countries had mandatory national insurance? I know it's far from perfect, but it's great in an emergency.

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Mrs Redboots
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I love my computer because my friends live in it!
Ice dancers have lovely big curves!

No, we privatised ours last year.
It's still mandatory.

And you didn't even mention voluntary and sometimes involuntary euthanasia of infants and old people!

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Gordon Zaft
http://sk8rboi.blogspot.com
School figures are skating's equivalent of the Latin Mass.

Really off-topic so if you'd like to continue this discussion afterwards, please start a thread in an off-ice forum. This is just to clarify the Dutch practice of euthanasia before misconceptions occur:

Actually I've never heard of euthanasia on infants except taking children off life support when both the doctors and their parents feel there is no more hope for their survival, but I think that's a practice pretty common all around the world and no parent or doctor will take that sort of thing lightly.

As for old people, euthanasia itself can only be performed by the opinions of 2 separate, non-connected doctors (doctors have gone to jail for euthanasia because it turned up that they knew each other in the investigation which always follows every case of euthanasia), the patient must be proven to suffer "inhumanely" (so far, courts have only accepted physical suffering grounds, not mental ones) AND have expressed the wish to die.

What *IS* sometimes done and what is NOT euthanasia but called "terminal sedation" is for a terminally ill patient who is already on life support of some sort (not just heart-lung machines but also for example if a patient can no longer eat by themselves and are fed through a tube) but who is no longer conscious or so senile that this person might as well be no longer conscious and who is therefore not able to express the wish for euthanasia (so far, you're not allowed to put bindingly in your will that you want euthanasia under certain circumstances). If such a patient is expected to die within a matter of days to a matter of weeks anyway, he or she is brought artificially into a coma after which point all life support is terminated and only painkillers and sedatives are administered (which leads the person to die within a few days of dehydration). I've heard of exactly 1 instance where this was done against the wishes of the immediate family and there was quite a storm around that instance.

And: Dutch law still prohibits euthanasia and punishes it criminally. It's just that courts dismiss the case if certain conditions are met.