No One Ever Told Us That: Money and Life Lessons for Young Adults

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

MEDICAL SMARTS

Let's cut through the fog. Your internist, your primary care physician, will be one of the very few key people in your lives. Perhaps the key person.

Years ago, health-care benefits were way down the list of things employees cared about. Costs were reasonable, an afterthought. Job applicants almost never mentioned medical coverage as one of the top areas of discussion. It was a given as a benefit at most companies of any size. Salary, money, was the center of the issues. All the other concerns were way down the line.

Today, medical coverage seems to be the number one concern for people seeking work. I don't believe in retirement. I think that if we have life around us in a workplace, it keeps us involved. We don't feel certain aches and pains when we're concentrating on tasks at hand. And I believe, if the adrenaline is pumping because we have daily purpose in our lives, it helps produce a happier and healthier life.

Did I say that the most important thing you can do in your medical life is make a friend of your doctor? Because these days and forevermore, you are going to have to be your own best advocate in the health-care forest. If your doctor becomes your friend, and develops a stake in you, you have a chance to negotiate the frustrating slog through hospital nightmares.

My business team and I have 2,000 clients scattered all over the world. When any of them comes to our office for an appointment, we're animals about making sure that no one ...