How to Deal with Finances After Chronic Illness Treatment

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Chronic illness comes in many forms, but the usual common side effect is continuous financial crisis. However, it is possible for a large majority of people to deal with their financial issues, even while suffering from the monetary deficits created by a persistent disease. The following pointers should prove to be useful for explaining exactly how to go about it.

Managing Health Insurance

Having a history of chronic illnesses such as diabetes, or a disease with high relapse rate like cancer, can make it quite difficult to get health insurance approval initially. At the same time, managing an expensive treatment plan for cancer could become almost impossible without insurance coverage. Even those of us who can somehow manage to come up with the necessary funds will likely have to sacrifice things as important as a retirement fund, or someone’s college fund. Then of course, there is always the variable possibility of a relapse, depending on the kind of cancer in question.

The good news is that cancer doesn’t have to ruin your financial plans, because people can get approval for health insurance, even if the individual has cancer currently, or has recently managed to recover from the deadly disease. A key piece of advice here would be to not jump towards the first insurer who approaches you, but to compare policies across the multiple insurance companies which are willing to provide health insurance to patients suffering from chronic illnesses.

 

Asking for Assistance

This tip applies as much for managing the physical and psychological impacts of any chronic disease, as it applies for managing finances while fighting with that very condition. It would be difficult to determine exactly how able one is for dealing with their disease, treatments and associated financial management all on their own, without knowing what the disease is exactly. However, as a general rule, it’s probably a bad idea to deal with it all on your own.

Given that this is a monetary deficit of a personal nature we are discussing, professional help may prove to be too expensive. It would be particularly convenient in such a scenario if you have a son/daughter/spouse/parent/friend/relative, who is good with money management, as well as being trustworthy. Relying on them for helping you out with the fund management is likely going to be a much better idea than trying to do too much in your condition.

 

Prepare for the Worst Case Scenario

Managing something such as asthma is not exactly a financial concern, or anything that might get worse beyond control, provided you are careful about it from the start. On the other hand, none of the other most common chronic diseases are that easy, or financially viable to manage unfortunately. However, early detection can give you enough time to prepare for the worst, and maybe even prevent the worst-case scenario.

Let’s take Alzheimer’s for example, which is an incurable, neurodegenerative disease that only gets worse with time. At the same time, as long as the disease has been diagnosed at an early stage, you can take adequate precautions to both prevent the condition from getting worse too fast, as well as preparing your finances accordingly. We already discussed health insurance, but shifting to a more adequate lifestyle, while saving up for the future care costs is always going to be that extra net of safety, which can help both the patient and their family from facing unprepared for financial burdens.

Most of the chronic diseases can be held at bay by leading a customized, healthy lifestyle. Research your specific disease, consult multiple medical experts, and formulate a lifestyle for yourself that you can use to fight the specific disease to the best of your capabilities and opportunities. A proper exercise plan, a good diet and the right meds at the right time can prevent a good number of chronic diseases from ever getting worse, to the point where it becomes a more severe financial burden to treat properly, or with any lasting effect.