A complete and holistic health assessment includes the:
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First impressions
Assessment begins as soon as you meet your patient. Perhaps without even being aware of it, you're already noting such aspects as their skin colour, speech patterns and body position. Your education as a nurse gives you the ability to organise and interpret this data. As you move on to conduct the formal nursing assessment, you'll collect data in a more structured way. The findings you collect from your assessment may be subjective or objective.
Group dynamics
When evaluating the assessment data, you'll start to recognise significant points and ask pertinent questions. You'll probably find yourself starting to group related bits of significant assessment data into clusters that give you clues about your patient's problem and prompt additional questions. For instance, if the data suggest a pattern of poor nutrition, you should ask questions that will help elicit the cause, such as:
History
The nursing history requires you to collect information about the patient's:
Biographical data
Begin your history by obtaining biographical data from the patient. Do this before you begin gathering details about his health. Ask the patient their name, address, telephone number, birth date, age, marital status, religion and nationality. Find out who the patient lives with and get the name and number of a person to contact in case of an emergency. Also ask the patient about their health care, including the name of their general practitioner and any other health care professionals or members of the interprofessional team they have contact with, for example an asthma nurse specialist or social worker.
If the patient can't give accurate information, ask for the name of a friend or relative who can. Always document the source of the information you collect as well as whether an interpreter was necessary and present.
Current complaints
To explore the patient's current complaints, ask the patient about the circumstances that have brought them into contact with the health care team. Is there an aspect of their health that is concerning them or proving challenging? Patient complaints provide valuable data immediately. When you explore these initial complaints, you may uncover crucial additional information.
Health Savings Accounts allow you to set up a tax-deductible account to pay for medical expenses that are not covered by your health insurance. These include expenses to cover your deductible, and other medical expenses like dental and eyeglasses. But many don't realize that HSA funds can be used to pay for virtually any type of medical service, as long as it pertains to the treatment or prevention of a specific health condition.
Because money withdrawn from a health savings account to pay medical expenses is tax-free, anyone who has an HSA can funnel all alternative medical expenses through their HSA and get a tax write-off. This could include biofeedback, naturopathy, Ayurvedic medicine, aromatherapy, magnetic healing, reflexology, and the list goes on.
People who use complementary therapies are often very health conscious, and go to traditional physicians less often. So it does not make sense for them to be paying a high premium for a traditional health insurance plan with a co-pay, particularly when their medical treatments are not covered anyway. Instead, many are choosing a low cost high-deductible HSA plan.
Alternative Therapies Becoming Mainstream
Many hospitals are now offering complementary treatments. The website for the Memorial Sloan-Keating Cancer Center states that complementary therapies are used to "help alleviate stress, reduce pain and anxiety, manage symptoms, and promote a feeling of well-being."
Some group health insurance plans are beginning to cover more complementary expenses, but there is still very little coverage for these expenses in individual or family plans. Those that cover chiropractic limit coverage to 12 - 20 visits per year, and a few will cover a limited amount of acupuncture. But very few if any cover hypnotherapy, Reiki, iridology, or faith healers.
Why Complementary Medicine
The conventional medicine practiced by most MDs is called allopathic medicine. The philosophy of this system is to treat disease and injury using counteractive methods. For instance, if you have a fever you may take aspirin to make it go down, if your cholesterol is elevated you may take a statin to reduce it, if you have heartburn you may take an antacid. The thinking is mostly focused on removing the symptoms of disease, and the primary treatment modalities are surgery and prescription drugs.
But there are other ways to look at things. Naturopathic medicine is based on the belief in the body's own healing powers, which can be strengthened through the use of certain foods, vitamins, herbs, or other "natural" treatments. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is based on ancient Chinese theories about the balance of yin and yang. Ayurvedic medicine is based on principles of movement, metabolism, and structure.
Part of the growing use of complementary therapies is a reaction to the costs, side effects, and philosophy of conventional allopathic medicine. Physicians get much of their continuing education from the pharmaceutical industry, and they work in an environment where the insurers mall doctor and the patients are both looking for a quick fix. The result is that the average 60 year old is now taking 5 regular medications, yet there is little expectation that those drugs will ever cure the health problems for which they're being used. Many consumers see this, and instead are using other methods to try to get to the root of their illness.
What is Considered an "HSA Qualified Expenses"
Qualified medical expenses have been partially defined in IRS Publication 502, and through various federal court rulings. There is no definitive list, but there are really very few restrictions as long as the procedure is for the treatment or prevention of a specific health condition. For instance, you could not use your HSA funds to pay for a relaxing massage for your own personal pleasure. But if your doctor recommends you get a massage for specific medical reasons, this is considered a qualified expense. Yoga would not normally be considered a qualified medical expense, but it would be if it was recommended as a physical therapy following some sort of accident.
Some may question why the government would give a tax deduction for someone to use some crazy energy vibration machine to cure their cancer. But this is as it should be. No one but you should be able to decide what type of treatment you will use for your own illnesses. By empowering individuals to manage their health as they see fit, Health Savings Accounts encourage personal responsibility and help loosen the monopoly on healthcare that conventional medicine has had for the past few decades.