If I were tested my comment I am using NRTs (Gum and lozenges) to stay off cigarettes. We will see what they say to that.
Telling the Doctor?
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If I were tested my comment I am using NRTs (Gum and lozenges) to stay off cigarettes. We will see what they say to that.
I'm not even sure what premiums are anymore. I'm thinking around $100 a month (for an individual) with lowest level of coverage. Quick google search showed around $400 a month for family plan, though not sure of coverage for that.
I have found in my last 10 years of having and not having insurance that every single doctor I have visited will discount their rates if you do not have insurance. I've had a doctor "no charge" me twice in the last year. Last time I had insurance, the deductibles were enough to make me not want to have it. And I really really really really do not like how medical billing treats consumers when you have insurance card. They treat it like 'prepaid credit card' and no need to be even a little bit concerned with pricing at the time of your visit. Perhaps back in the 80's that was a great system (or at one time I thought it was), but not anymore. When you show up and don't have insurance, they treat you vastly different. And IMO, they treat you far better, with discounted rates.
Again, for catastrophic situations, I can see good reason to have insurance, but for just about everything else, it is very challenging to understand why I would get insurance again other than government making it clear that if I don't, I'll be heavily penalized.
I had small group before '93 for $75 and it was pretty good. I don't think you can touch anything as an individual that's worth it for less than $300 (really no idea since ACA). $400 for a family can't be good. I've found with bad insurance you may as well not have insurance. With my last bad insurance it would've caused bankruptcy a couple years ago, like you found with deductibles. I got lucky and when I needed it I have insurance with no deductible, $30 office visits, $125 ER and a lot of stuff is 100%, plus the max out of pocket is what some people's deductible is. I actually don't mind paying the co-pay to go to doctors 6+ times a year, that's still not equal to what one visit would cost.
(edit to add)And an extended hospital stay, say a week, which I'm likely to have, would hit the max out of pocket and then everything is paid for. I just need to time that hospital stay for the beginning of the year.(/edit)
And the thing is this good insurance isn't much more than the bad insurance.
Your experience of discounts for no insurance is the opposite here and many places. Insurance companies deal on the price, no insurance gets stuck with the inflated price to make up for the discounts and no-pays. The last Dr group I was going to had a sign saying payment up front if you didn't have insurance (and even if you did with some insurance).
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I actually eat a lot of all of these as a vegan with a taste for eggplant curry lol
I wonder if they metabolize in your system to detectable levels when testing for nicotine.
I say I quit, but I use nic gum every once in a great while to keep me from smoking. Screw it, I ain't getting drawn into any vaping debate with a doctor. If some insurance nazi were to make me tinkle in a cup before a court of law, I would say I just popped a nic gum a few hours ago.
Go for it if you want, try to tell a doctor you know more than they do. Not all are alike, no. But take your chances. I have no problem with lies, especially when convenient, and neither did Benjamin Franklin. Most of what doctors learn these days you can Google yourself.
Go for it if you want, try to tell a doctor you know more than they do. Not all are alike, no. But take your chances. I have no problem with lies, especially when convenient, and neither did Benjamin Franklin. Most of what doctors learn these days you can Google yourself.
I can't even imagine having a relationship with a doctor I could not be 110% honest with, because someday, that may be important to keep me alive.
Health is the most important possession we have, and I choose my docs carefully. After my beloved doc died (and he was the best doc I have ever had, I could talk to him about anything) I visited and tried 5 others before i found the one I have now.
The one I have now is like salt of the earth. She's great, and this is a true PARTNERSHIP, as it should be. We make decisions together, and I am 100% honest with her. She doesn't AGREE with me on everything, but that's okay, in the end, I make the decisions and she respects that. If I refuse a treatment, she just says "you know I have to write in your chart that you refused this," and I say "yeah, that's fine, I kow you gotta CYA and say that you told me and I didn't listen
"
She is a cancer survivor, so she knows the score and has been thru so much medical intervention herself, including chemo and losing all her hair, etc. and is so compassionate and non judgemental.
FIND a good doctor. One you can work with.
They are out there.
The one person you should NEVER have to lie to is your doctor.
Health is the most important possession we have, and I choose my docs carefully. After my beloved doc died (and he was the best doc I have ever had, I could talk to him about anything) I visited and tried 5 others before i found the one I have now.
The one I have now is like salt of the earth. She's great, and this is a true PARTNERSHIP, as it should be. We make decisions together, and I am 100% honest with her. She doesn't AGREE with me on everything, but that's okay, in the end, I make the decisions and she respects that. If I refuse a treatment, she just says "you know I have to write in your chart that you refused this," and I say "yeah, that's fine, I kow you gotta CYA and say that you told me and I didn't listen
"She is a cancer survivor, so she knows the score and has been thru so much medical intervention herself, including chemo and losing all her hair, etc. and is so compassionate and non judgemental.
FIND a good doctor. One you can work with.
They are out there. The one person you should NEVER have to lie to is your doctor.
You should never have to lie to your doctor is right. You are lucky but I've had some very poor experiences, too off topic. Now I am leary.
Not hating on doctors at all, my friend's kid is a surgeon. I don't mean a Dougie Houser, she's an adult. She says doctors lie all the time. They're a group of people just like any other. Some love their pharma reps, boy. Again maybe off topic.
Just saying I can't be bothered when it comes to vaping, it's no big deal to me and if it is or isn't to my doctor I don't care. And I am getting too old to waste time in those kinds of arguments, when I could be out of that damn doctor's office, outside, digging the fresh air that is probably better for me than being in there in the first place.
Not hating on doctors at all, my friend's kid is a surgeon. I don't mean a Dougie Houser, she's an adult. She says doctors lie all the time. They're a group of people just like any other. Some love their pharma reps, boy. Again maybe off topic.
Just saying I can't be bothered when it comes to vaping, it's no big deal to me and if it is or isn't to my doctor I don't care. And I am getting too old to waste time in those kinds of arguments, when I could be out of that damn doctor's office, outside, digging the fresh air that is probably better for me than being in there in the first place.
Likewise. I've had enough of them who needed to be schooled about nutrition, I don't want to get into it with them about vaping. Luckily I'm an immortal so I rarely get sick, though I do get injured from time to time. If get sick enough to see a doctor for it I'll tell them everything but otherwise I just choose the battles and keep doing the things that prevent me from needing their care (knock wood)
Not having insurance, but still having to go to the doctor in the past year, I saw no reason to lie to a doctor about vaping. Or smoking. Keep in mind, I say here on ECF that I'm a proud moderate smoker. Last pack I bought was in 2013, and I still have some left. So, I smoke very little, but don't see myself as having quit. Thus, to insurance providers, I'd be a smoker with no need to get into details of what that means. To a doctor, it is a different story and the only story that matters I believe. I was honest with doctors about how much I smoke.
If I were to get insurance tomorrow, I'd have very little issue lying about smoking/vaping. I realize that could come back and bite me if I were caught in a lie, but after being bitten by both insurance companies and medical billing departments when insured (and not smoking), I just see it as a game to navigate thru. You take your chances, assess risks, and hope for the best. Man I despise health insurance. Whole system would be better if it would just go away, IMO. Stories you hear from how doctors were 50 to 100 years ago compared to how they are forced to be today, as they are navigating the game from the other side, is just despicable IMO. I really kinda hope Obamacare gets financially worse, and bankrupts a few insurance companies in the process. Then something else is put in place. What that is exactly is the trillion dollar answer, but what was going on right before Obamacare was not sustainable and right about now, Obamacare does not look good for the long term (by which I mean 3 to 5 years from now).
Sorry to bring up Obamacare, but I do see it as directly tied to OP and why OP was asked the question. IMO, it has nothing to do with doctor being concerned, and everything to do with insurance forcing doctors to ask that question, collect the information. As much as invoking Obamacare into a discussion could lead to hijacking of a thread, I'd like to be abundantly clear that what was in place before it, was IMO, worse but kept hidden/downplayed compared to how much certain people can't help but scrutinize the heck out of ACA. You got a better plan than ACA? Then put it forward. But going back to what was is very poor policy. Anyone that has a plan that gets rid of insurance as much as possible is one I'd support going forward. Then you wouldn't have to worry about rates going up because you chose to be honest with your doctor about what it is you do (i.e. vape).
If I were to get insurance tomorrow, I'd have very little issue lying about smoking/vaping. I realize that could come back and bite me if I were caught in a lie, but after being bitten by both insurance companies and medical billing departments when insured (and not smoking), I just see it as a game to navigate thru. You take your chances, assess risks, and hope for the best. Man I despise health insurance. Whole system would be better if it would just go away, IMO. Stories you hear from how doctors were 50 to 100 years ago compared to how they are forced to be today, as they are navigating the game from the other side, is just despicable IMO. I really kinda hope Obamacare gets financially worse, and bankrupts a few insurance companies in the process. Then something else is put in place. What that is exactly is the trillion dollar answer, but what was going on right before Obamacare was not sustainable and right about now, Obamacare does not look good for the long term (by which I mean 3 to 5 years from now).
Sorry to bring up Obamacare, but I do see it as directly tied to OP and why OP was asked the question. IMO, it has nothing to do with doctor being concerned, and everything to do with insurance forcing doctors to ask that question, collect the information. As much as invoking Obamacare into a discussion could lead to hijacking of a thread, I'd like to be abundantly clear that what was in place before it, was IMO, worse but kept hidden/downplayed compared to how much certain people can't help but scrutinize the heck out of ACA. You got a better plan than ACA? Then put it forward. But going back to what was is very poor policy. Anyone that has a plan that gets rid of insurance as much as possible is one I'd support going forward. Then you wouldn't have to worry about rates going up because you chose to be honest with your doctor about what it is you do (i.e. vape).
Unfortunately for us, what 'they' will do is probably consider us smokers anyway... you see, they KNOW very well about the ridiculous sucess rate of 'safe' (Chantix?) and 'effective' (4-5%?) traditional NRT's. So, they tend to look at it this way: "OK, so you're trying to quit smoking NOW, but in a few weeks you will probably be a smoker again. Please apply for 'non-smoking' again next year, and then we'll see..."
As long as you use nicotine, and given the low sucess rate of NRT's (That is, PRIOR to the arrival of the e-cig), you are considered a smoker, because, UNTIL NOW, you would probably return to smoking again.
Of course, the game has changed with the arrival of the e-cig. Sadly, for those who can actually influence Govt's and policy-making, that change was NOT for the better...!
None of us know much about the long term effects of all day vaping PG and VG. The lab rat test back in the 1940s revealed that the rats who lived in a PG mist environment were healthier than the ones that lived in a plain old air environment and that's the test we place our faith in.
TESTS FOR THE CHRONIC TOXICITY OF PROPYLEXE GLYCOL AND TRIETHYLENE GLYCOL ON MONKEYS AND RATS BY VAPOR INHALATION AND ORAL ADMINISTRATION
It's still a relative unknown in humans, but rats and monkeys seem to share similar propensities to disease and effect from outside stimulus as humans. These rats and monkeys lived 24/7 in a PG atmosphere.
No one who wants to do away with vaping seems to quote this study, though.
TESTS FOR THE CHRONIC TOXICITY OF PROPYLEXE GLYCOL AND TRIETHYLENE GLYCOL ON MONKEYS AND RATS BY VAPOR INHALATION AND ORAL ADMINISTRATION
It's still a relative unknown in humans, but rats and monkeys seem to share similar propensities to disease and effect from outside stimulus as humans. These rats and monkeys lived 24/7 in a PG atmosphere.
No one who wants to do away with vaping seems to quote this study, though.
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I just wonder if 6 mg nic would show up. I have no idea the nic level in cigarettes. I do know that the nic is dispersed differently in the system with vaping vs smoking.
i have not been to a doctor for a check up in years, and really do not intend on going to one anytime soon. also i will not buy health insurance just because the idiot Obama passed a law that requires it. I work for my self selling the storm videos from my tornado chases and I simply will never file another tax return. Obama cannot make us do anything we do not want to do and he is not my president. I have zero respect for that complete idiot. let them try to fine me for not having health insurance....prove i have an income since it is a cash income and i simply will no longer file a tax return.
If you are being tested for nic, the best strategy would be no vaping for 4 days prior to the test. 6mg WILL show up. The test even shows low levels for people who live in a home where someone smokes.
You never know. He may be able to give a thumbs up. Or some of my patients blink once for yes, two for no.
I'm be sarcastic....no, I wouldn't put "no" on life insurance either.
This year, my employer policy for us retirees didn't give us the opportunity to select smoker or non-smoker. They just raised the price $300/month for everybody. I think they want us to do the Obamacare thing and go away. I'd love to, but I'm waiting until I feel I can trust it.
I talked to my doctor yesterday and she is perfectly happy that I vape then smoke.
I am diabetic and my numbers are all over the place. Since I began vaping my blood sugars have been awesome. Nothing over 160 in the morning and coming from 200+ that is saying something. I have not changed what I am eating so I believe it is from vaping. I have not had an actual cig since Tuesday evening and I am thinking I can stick with this. My doctor actually told me to get an e-cig last year and pair it with either the nic gum or patches. But I am doing fine with 18mg for now.
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