In the current economy, so many people have lost their jobs. With that job loss, people who did have good health insurance can't keep up the payments to keep it because the premiums become great. Carrying that financial burden is sometimes more than one can bear and so they let their health insurance get cancelled. More and more people are without health insurance as the months pass on.

When you get a chance to start a new job, you have to wait a certain period of time to be able to be eligible for health insurance. With this current economy, some people pass on getting the insurance they need because they don't want to lose any money from their paycheck. Every dollar we make has to stretch but at the same time we don't think about the consequences of how much more money it is going to cost us when something drastic happens and we have to go to the emergency room.

If you are one of those people who has to take prescriptions everyday and need to renew them and refill them each month, a lot of people are opting to not do that because they can't afford to get their prescriptions and put dinner on the table.

A lot of us are trying to make choices that put our own personal health on the back burner.

Life keeps moving whether you have insurance or not. You aren't given a life calendar that lists every broken bone or sprain or illness that is going to come up so that you can plan when you get your insurance.

Either way, for whatever reason that you don't have health insurance, you still have to take care of your health and the health of your family. Illnesses and injuries come up and you have to take care of them.

When you are a parent, your children come first and you make sure that they have what they want and need and that when they are sick, they go to the doctor. As a parent and trying to maintain the finances, you put your self last.

It is terrible when you have to make choices that affect how you take care of your own personal health.

I know the scenerio all to well when it comes to not having medical insurance and knowing that something is wrong and you need to go to the doctor but you don't want to add that extra burden to your family finances. ( In my case too, I have an aversion to going to the doctor and never go until the situation becomes more than I can handle, which is not smart or good and not something I advise.)

When you don't have insurance where can you go and what can you do ?

Recently, within the last week, I was forced to make a decision to go to the doctor. I don't have insurance and so I tried to find the best way to handle my situation.

Let me tell you this first off, whether you are a man or a woman, don't try to ignore something when you know there is something wrong. It is a big mistake to ignore the problem. And sometimes what you think or put in your mind as not being a huge deal, may end up being more than you realize.

I chose to ignore a lump in my breast and swollen lymph nodes and glands. The lump didn't hurt and so I thought it would just go away, however, the more I chose to ignore it, the more things kept coming up which lead to swollen lymph nodes and glands, fevers and chills.

I decided that going to the emergency room was out of the question. Now a days, if you go to the emergency room and don't have insurance, it costs you $150 just to walk in the door. I decided to go to a walk in clinic. It didn't cost me that much and the wait time was less than twenty minutes. I am not saying that will always be the case when you go to a walk in clinic but that was the case for me when I went.

Walk in clinics are cheaper than going to the emergency room and most have discounts for you if you are private pay. They are great for colds and minor things. The doctors at walk in clinics are a little more sympathetic to you when you don't have insurance and can work things out with you on limiting tests and are great for advising you on where to get the cheapest prescriptions if they write you one.

Some pharmacies and major places like Krogers and Walmart sell prescriptions afforadably when you get generics. Some for $4 or less. Krogers has a list of antibiotics and other prescriptions that you can even get for free. Ask your doctor about this because they generally have a list. If you can get the doctor to write for antibiotic on the list , it won't cost you a penny.

In my case, the doctor refunded my money after she saw me and sent me straight to the emergency room. I was freaking out because I had been trying my best not to end up there. She wanted me to use the money that I had spent at her office towards going to the emergency room. Yes, apparently, lumps and swollen lymph nodes, fever and chills, is much more important than I gave credit for.

This is what I learned about going to the emergency room that may be helpful to you. If you find that you have to go to the emergency room and you don't have insurance, go to the emergency room in your county that you live in. Emergency rooms have a built in budget for people who live in the county and can prove that they are residents of that county. This done by using your drivers license. You still have to pay something for going to the emergency room but in my case, there was a 60% discount for going there just because I was a resident of the county. They also required a deposit of no more than $85. When the insurance clerk came in, she asked us how much we could put down on the deposit which we put the whole $85 down.

After talking to the doctor in the emergency room, I found out that I need a mamogram for the mass in my right breast. The emergency room doctor was a physcians assistant and explained to me that there are a lot of people without insurance including herself because she is contracted to the hospital and is unable to obtain insurance.

She of course lectured me about the importance of my health and not to ignore lumps or masses painful or not. That these things if not serious already can lead to something serious. She also informed me that there are a lot of places out there that help people without insurance to be able to get the care they need. She said the best way to approach this is to call doctors offices and find out how much it costs to be seen and also ask if they offer discounts to private pay people. She also said to utilize the programs available at the health department. Not only do they have programs for basic health care they can also provide information on other programs and where to find them.

If you can't or are having a rough time paying for your prescriptions that you have to have, contact your health department and find out what programs are available in your county.

My husband and I's only problem is that we don't have insurance and of course the times when you least expect a problem to arise is when you don't have insurance. My husband switched companies where he works and had to wait until he was there a certain amount of time to be eligible for the insurance, which he found out that he is now able to get.

In my case, I need a mamogram done very soon. Without insurance, we can't afford to go just anywhere to get one. I found out through my health department that they have programs where they can evaluate the mass in my breast and they can do the mamogram based on our income.

The insurance that my husband will be getting with is company is a group insurance. I recently found out that when you go with group insurance, they can't look at what I am going through right now as a pre-exisiting condition so they will have to cover it.

Take care of your health

We all go through rough times but it is important that we take care of our health. There are a lot of programs out there that will help you if you don't have health insurance. You have to be proactive in finding them. I hope that I have given you some options that you will find useful and as a starting point if you find you need to go to a doctor or need assistance with prescriptions.

As for me I am on the jouney for getting the mamogram and getting the mass identified and going from there. I learned that sometimes the things we try to make insignificant can be more serious than we thought or want it to be. I am trying not to worry about the worst case, which is breast cancer and trying to move forward starting at the basics. Get the mamogram and move on from there.