Healthcare Choices

December 1, 2016
Georgiou, an MD who served as chief medical officer of United Healthcare, knows her subject matter. To help Americans make good medical choices, she recommends following her own CARES model. She presents its five sensible, empowering steps: understand your condition, know your alternatives, respect your preferences, evaluate your options, and start taking action. A compelling storyteller, Georgiou, who also reports on health news for a Twin Cities television station, includes questions from the public about everything from bad breath to toenail fungus along with her responses. She also uses the power of numbers effectively. Noting, for example, that 40 websites provide report cards on physicians, but only 23 percent of Americans have used them. All doctors are not created equal, Georgiou reminds us, so check them out (HealthGrades.com is a good start). She also points out that only half of patients take medications as prescribed, and she offers interesting, relevant trivia. The most common reason for an office visit? A cough. What's the leading cause of bankruptcy? Unpaid medical bills. Georgiou provides readers with sound tools to be better-informed patients.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)