Beneficial Foods for Diabetic Patients
1. Almond: The use of almond, after its oil has been extracted, is considered beneficial in the treatment of diabetes. It does not contain any starch.
2. Banana: Bananas are believed to the useful in controlling diabetes. According to the Journal of American Medical Association, “Banana and Skimmed milk furnish a simple and effective method for weight reduction in treating diabetic patients”. Unripe bananas, cooked as a vegetable, are considered especially valuable in this disease.
3. Buttermilk: The use of the buttermilk has been found beneficial in the treatment of diabetes. Lactic Acid contained in it stimulates the secretion of the pancreas and thereby helps control blood sugar levels.
4. Flour: Certain whole grain cereals also help to lower blood sugar in diabetes. A mixture of certain flours made from cereals, grains, legumes, and pulses are especially beneficial. One such mixture can be prepared by combining the flour of Soya bean, black gram, jowar, bajra, Bengal gram, wheat bran and barley. This mixed flour can be used for preparing chapattis.
5. Legumes: Lentils and other legumes are considered valuable in diabetes. According to American journal of Clinical Nutrition, they are specially effective in the diet of diabetes patients because of their slow release of energy.
6. Sour Fruits: Certain tart or sour fruits have proved to be valuable in stimulating the pancreas and increase the production of insulin. These fruits include sour apple and sour citrus fruits, which can invigorate pancreas.
7. Teas: Certain types of teas are considered beneficial in the treatment of diabetes. Tea prepared from parsley has been found to lower blood sugar. Certain communities use tea made from tender leaves of walnut for controlling diabetes.
Find complete diabetes information, diabetes supply, diabetes treatment, diabetes diet, diabetes causes, diabetes types. More on Diabetes Mellitus Information and Treatment Supply
Temporary insurance applications available Sunday
Temporary insurance applications available Sunday
The application process to participate in a temporary health insurance program for uninsured people with pre-existing health conditions begins Sunday, and officials are cautioning those who may qualify to jump into the application process quickly.
Advantage Foot Care – Podiatry Concord, NH 03301
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Diabetes self management
Diabetes self management from Diabetes Care Club. We offer information about Diabetes self management including Diabetes testing supplies take a step forward to Diabetes Self Management. Visit www.DiabetesCareClub.com today or call 800-840-7711 for more information about Diabetes self management….
Learn About Diabetes Cooking
Diabetes is one of the most persistent disease, which can turn into severe due to unhealthy food habitslife style. If you or any of your relatives members or friends are affected by this terrible disease, make sure you or your loved one is following a appropriate diet chart. You might not know the detail on diabetes cooking, but do not get worry. We are giving detail information on this food preparation so that you do not face any difficulties while you are preparing diabetic foods..
There are many differences between diabetic foods and typical food stuffs that we take day after day.As you are working on diabetes cooking, make sure the food should be tasty so that diabetic patient does not get fed up consuming the same food everyday. Consult the doctors. He or she would help you to find the appropriate diabetic-friendly food, using those ingredients, which do not influence your sugar levels. Appropriate diets always balance your high sugar level and make you healthier than before. Few healthy ingredients to do food preparation are grains, spices and dried herbs, legumes and beans, Bitter Melon, etc. Without these ingredients, your suitable diabetes cooking will be incomplete.
Legumes and Beans are useful for making diabetic foods. They are considered as low calorie vegetables. Eating these vegetables is good for diabetic. Spices and dried herbs are able to counteract the sugar level of your body. Spices and herbs include curry powder, ground ginger, bay leaves, caraway seeds, saffron, ground cinnamon, red pepper flakes, cloves are very testy and useful. Try to use these ingredients while you are doing diabetes cooking. Grains are themain ingredients for food preparation. It includes essential fiber, which can be beneficial for the diabetic to get rid of this persistent disease as quickly as possible.
Grains help to build up glucose. Without grains, your special cooking is incomplete. It is much wanted for your healthy diet plan. Research shows that Bitter Melon has shown intensity to stop this terrible disease quickly. Even if it is not well identified ingredient, but today it is used for diabetes cooking. The taste is not so first-rate, simply bitter. While you are into cooking, use little amount of Bitter Melon so that your food is not tasteless.
Consuming enormous amount of salt and sugar can be harmful for your health. Make sure you are not adding much of these ingredients to your cooking. Otherwise, your sugar level would be high. You can take tea or coffee excluding sugar. You can also take sugar free sweets. Burger or pizza can be taken. Although you should keep in mind that too much intake would absolutely affect on your sugar levels. Diabetes cooking should be done well and with great deal of concentration. If not, your effort will be hopeless and this cooking will be unsuitable.
I am sure you have acquired much information on <a rel=”nofollow” onclick=”javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview(’/outgoing/article_exit_link’);” href=”http://www.the-diabetic-diets.com/”>diabetes cooking </a>. If you want to learn more on diabetes cooking, you can also consult the experts. They will give you a proper idea on diabetes cooking.
Lowering Health Care Costs – Group Health Captives for Mid-Sized Employers
Many employers are faced with the rapidly growing cost of health insurance, second only to payroll. The average cost for family coverage is almost $13,000 a year. Larger employers are capable of taking control of their costs because most of them are self insured. Since this allows for transparency, large employers can implement wellness programs targeted at what their true problems are.
Most mid-sized employers are fully insured and do not have the product options that their larger counterparts have available. They do not know what claims they have or where their premium dollars go. The lack of transparency prevents them from taking control of the cost of health insurance.
So how can mid-sized employers change what they are doing? They can form what is called a captive program. A captive can be formed by a group of employers in an effort to reduce the costs associated with providing health benefits to their employees. These employers can come from a wide variety of backgrounds including existing risk retention groups, trade associations, franchises, portfolio companion of private equity firms, and clients of an agency or broker. Employers have been using captive programs for workers compensation for years with high success.
Each captive can be customized with its own terms, rules of participation, and financial structure, and the typical captive program takes 3 – 6 months to create depending on multiple variables. Launching a captive usually requires a minimum of 3 employers with a total of 500 or more employees.
Ideal employers should have 50 to 400 eligible employees for the company’s health plan and have the financial resources to assume a portion of the risk associated with their employee benefit plan. They should have forward-thinking management who are focused on taking control of rising health care costs and are willing to lead the change. They need to be able to communicate with their employees about the importance of being proactive in lowering the cost of healthcare. Allowing the smaller employers that were fully insured to go to a self insured plan has many potential advantages, and it allows them to spread out and share the risk with other companies in the captive program.
Employers can maintain a single plan across all states, which can potentially decrease administrative costs. Employers also have greater access to claim and behavioral data (in a HIPAA compliant manner), which allows them to influence employee activity and decrease costs. They can assemble an all star-team of vendors instead of being forced into the one-size-fits-all approach of the fully insured market. Employers can choose to eliminate or reduce some of the mandated benefits imposed by each state; this allows them to remove the cost of potentially unnecessary benefits. Often the employer with better than average risk profile achieves additional savings.
In order to protect themselves from financial loss, most self-insured employers purchase a stop loss policy that provides insurance against both large individual claims and an aggregation of small claims. The majority of large employers operate self insured plans due to the benefits previously described. Many medium sized employers want the benefit of a self insured plan, but dislike the inherent trade-off associated with such plans. Captive programs are designed to allow employers to maintain the majority of the potential savings associated with moving to a self insured plan without all of the volatility of a high retention stop loss policy
Captives accomplish this through a unique risk and reward structure. Each captive program can be structured for a group of employers with a common tie. Each employer retains the losses that are predictable for it. The group of employers share losses that are unpredictable for any one employer, but that are predictable for the group. The group transfers losses that are not predictable for either an individual employer or the group to the insurance carrier. Each employer retains its predictable portion of risk through a self insured retention. The employer limits this risk by purchasing a stop loss policy. The policy provides both specific and aggregate coverage. All employers within the captive program share in the economic results of the layer of risk between the individual employers’ specific and aggregate retentions and the groups’ specific and aggregate retentions. And the employers transfer the risk of unpredictable and catastrophic losses to the stop loss carrier.
This flexibility allows each program to be designed to meet the specific needs of each group of employers. Each captive program may have different employers’ self insured retentions. For example, one employer may insure $10,000 per individual, and a different employer can insurance a total of $250,000 per individual. The stop loss carrier will cede a portion of the policy’s premium to the group’s captive. The premium for the layer between $10,000 and $250,000 per individual is a large portion of the overall stop loss policy premium. This also means that the layer will likely contain a large portion of any cost savings associated with a self insured plan. In addition to the premium, the captive should be funded with collateral provided by employers of the captive program. The collateral is typically 15 – 20% of each employer’s comparable fully insured premium and can be provided by a letter of credit or cash. Unused funds in the captive are returned to the employers. The timing of the distributions is determined by each captive. The captive is acting only as a reinsurer of the stop loss carrier. It is not a primary or direct insurer of the plan, the employees, or the employer. The stop loss carrier is responsible for paying all covered claims, and then seeking reimbursement from the captive.
Each employer within a captive program will have its own benefit plan. The sponsoring employers should have a common stop loss carrier and reinsurer. The employers can reduce the cost of their insurance through the economic results of the captive. There are no shared plans; each employer maintains its own single employer plan. There are no group policies; each employer is issued its own stop loss policy. There are no group rates; each policy is individually underwritten for each employer.
There is no commingling of plan assets; each employer is responsible for its own plan assets. There is no joint or severable liability amongst employers for their self insured retentions. The employers are not acting as reinsurers; they are participating in the economic results of a reinsurer (the captive program).
So what is the value of being in a captive? The concept behind a captive program is simple: provide medium sized employers with the advantages of self insurance while decreasing volatility. Participation in a captive program is a means to an end. The real objectives are transparency, control, stability, and profit. A captive program can help achieve these objectives.
Participation in a captive program is not for all employers. Some employers may prefer to remain in a fully insured product, while other employers may be perfectly comfortable with the volatility of traditional self funded product. Captive programs are not a miracle cure for the high costs of health insurance.
They are a tool to help employers gain more control over their health insurance and reduce its costs. A captive program must be coupled with a long term commitment to reducing cost drivers. Implementing wellness programs and medical tourism programs are ways to address cost control measures.
There are two notable fallacies associated with health insurance. The first is that employers cannot control their health care costs. This is a view held by most. Without adequate data and transparency, it is probably a true statement. If an employer is fully insured, they likely don’t know the answers to the following three questions:
How many times did your employees visit an emergency room last year, when they could have just as easily waited a day or two and gone to their PCP?
How many of your diabetic employees are taking their prescriptions regularly?
How many of your employees are current on their recommended cancer screenings and physicals?
However if an employer had the answers to these questions, they could begin to build a program to control the underlying cost drivers.
The second fallacy is that discounts are everything. There is a myth in the industry that discounts are the single most important factor to lower costs. The logic is that without the steepest discounts, the cost of health insurance will be greater. Comparisons of discounts in isolation are useless as the analysis must also consider the amount of services consumed. It is the combination of unit cost, quality of care, and quantity of care that ultimately determines cost. The total costs of health insurance are not determined by the cost of doctor visits; they are driven by the health of the employers’ population and the decisions made by the population. Preventing the medical condition that creates a claim is always preferable to simply reducing the cost of the claim. A healthier employee population has many associated benefits including improved efficiency, higher morale, and fewer absences.
In closing, a captive program gives the ability for mid-sized employers to take advantages of being self insured as long as they are able to act upon the information they are able to glean by being self insured. The potential long term changes should benefit employees by lowering claim cost, lowering employee contributions, improving service, and increasing the commitment to improving health.
Gary Becker is the President of Becker Benefit Group, which is a employee benefits consulting agency, providing employee benefits to help employers recruit, retain, and reward key employees. Our agency is based in Owings Mills, MD and we have created the first Group Health Captive in the State of Maryland. We have put into place incentives for employees to participate in our Wellness Initiative and are proud to report that we have over a 90% participation rate. The Wellness Initiative includes an annual biometric screening, an online health risk assessment, and ongoing online quarterly wellness education customized for each employee.
Typically, 20% of the employees incur 80% of the claims. We use sophisticated data mining software that is able to identify the high-risk, medium-risk, and low-risk employees. Our predictive modeling software is able to show employers the claims risk for their employee population, and we implement strategies such as nurse outreach to these high-risk and at-risk employees to engage employees to better manage their health. Our program works and we have found that groups using our strategies are trending under 3% per year.
Our agency is focused on being a proactive, actively managing plans and providing innovative solutions for clients. We keep apprised of trends in the industry and focus on wellness as a preventative cost control measure. Our focus is helping employers with wellness, and global healthcare design, implementation and administration to take control of rising health care costs.
Designing a health care plan is only the first step: managing it is the most important! Becker Benefit Group meets with clients to determine the strategy for the benefit plan design, then builds and negotiates on behalf of the client. Becker Benefit Group is a proactive insurance agency, helping employers design employee benefit plans and wellness programs to help take control of increasing insurance premiums. We help by managing employer’s health insurance every day, instead of being reactive at renewal.
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Group Health Captives for Mid-Sized Employers … Turn Premiums Into Profits. Call me for Information.
Giant Eagle® Expands Free Prescription Program to Include Free Diabetes Medicines in Northeast Ohio
Giant Eagle® Expands Free Prescription Program to Include Free Diabetes Medicines in Northeast Ohio
With diabetes affecting the lives of hundreds of thousands of people throughout Ohio and Pennsylvania, Giant Eagle®, Inc. has announced that it will begin offering five commonly prescribed medications for the treatment of type 2 diabetes at no cost to medical prescription holders.
Providence Tarzana Medical Center – Providence Health & Services California
Providence Tarzana Medical Center is a 245-bed, not-for-profit medical center that serves the San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles, California, offering high quality specialty services, including: heart and vascular care, a Diabetes Care Center , orthopedic, NICU, PICU, pediatric, and oncology and senior services. Spoken: Dale Surowitz – Chief Executive Shirley Heidersbach – Chief Nursing Officer, RN, MSN Jane Mathews – RN, Charge Nurse, Pediatric Intensive Care Unit G. Scott Brewster – MD, Medical Director of Emergency Medicine Douglas Morrow – MD, FACS
The Best Foods for Those Who Suffer of Diabetes
It is well known that diabetics have to follow a strict diet to maintain under control their level of sugar in the blood, and they don not have many alternatives when talking about food.
Here you can find some of the indicated vegetables in treating the diabetes, which are easy to find on the market, and do not taste awful.
The French bean, also known as common or kidney bean is one of the most frequently vegetable used in the whole world.
For controlling diabetes it is indicated to eat beans because they are high in carbohydrates and fiber.
A great remedy for diabetes is the bean decoction. You need 60 grams of fresh bean pods, weighed after removing their seeds, you boil the pads for four hours on a slow fire in four liters of water, then you strain this decoction through fine muslin cloth and then you let it rest for eight hours. During the day it is recommended that you drink one glass of this decoction every two hours for a period of 4 to 8 weeks. You must prepare this decoction every day and drink it fresh, because it looses its medicinal properties after 24 hours.
Another useful natural product is the juice extracted from the French beans, combined with the juice of Brussels sprout, which stimulates the production of insulin.
Studies managed by Dr. James Anderson of the Human Nutrition Research Center of the US Department of Agriculture concluded that foods that lower cholesterol and prevent heart diseases, along with beans that are high in soluble fiber and reduce the level of sugar in the blood, are suitable for diabetics who develop a high risk of heart disease.
Lettuce can also be used freely by diabetics as it contains 3% or less of carbohydrates.
Tomato is useful for those who want to lose weight, is low in carbohydrates too and it is said to control the level of sugar in the urine.
A great nutritious food used in the diet of diabetics is the Soya bean. It is rich in quality proteins and fat, and poor in starch. Studies on Soya bean have been performed since 1910 and have proved the utility of this vegetable in reducing the quality of urinary sugar in diabetes patients.
One of the eldest used vegetable in treating diabetes is the onion. It is not important whether it is eaten raw or cooked, the most important thing is that onion can lower the blood sugar level in diabetes and the greater the dose, the faster the blood response.
In the 1960’s scientists discovered anti-diabetic compounds in onion, similar to the anti-diabetic pharmaceuticals that are used in stimulating insulin synthesis and release: allyl, propyl, disulphide and allicin.
An equilibrate diet, based on vegetables, fruit and juices, and with less fats and sweets, associated with an active lifestyle, quitting smoking, self measuring the level of sugar in the blood and losing weight could control the diabetes and allow the patients to live a normal life.
For more information about diabetes diet, diabetes treatment, diabetes causes visit http://www.diabetesmellitus-information.com
So, if you want to find out more about diabetes mellitus or even about juvenile diabetes please follow this link http://diabetes-info-center.com/
CIGNA Study: CDHPs Deliver Real World Health Care Reform
As overall medical costs continue to increase by double digits annually, medical costs for individuals in account-based consumer-driven health plans (CDHPs) went down 26% over four years, while levels of care for their preventive medicine, chronic disease management and evidence-based treatments were higher than their counterparts in traditional PPO and HMO health plans, according to a new multi-year study of health care claims experience of 655,000 CIGNA customers.
The Fourth Annual CIGNA Choice Fund Experience Study is the latest evidence that more than any health reform proposal currently on the table, these innovative free market plans have been consistently proven to deliver actual quality, accessible health coverage at substantially lower costs.
“The empirical data is in and it’s undeniable: when health plans provide incentives for people to be engaged, their health care quality goes up and costs go down,” said CIGNA President and Chief Operating Officer, David M. Cordani. “CIGNA’s study shows that the incentives offered by consumer-driven plans — such as lower premiums, freedom of choice, and the ability to build up health savings — result in an immediate and sustained improvement in health care quality and lower costs.”
Key findings of the Fourth Annual CIGNA Choice Fund Experience Study include:
Immediate and sustainable cost savings: CDHP medical costs are 14% less than traditional plans the first year, cumulative cost savings rise to 19% in the second year, 23% in the third year and 26% in the fourth year.
Higher levels of care: People with CIGNA Choice Fund received recommended care at compliance rates that were similar or better than those covered by traditional CIGNA health plans. Key indicators such as use of preventive care, evidence-based care and disease management program participation were measurably better among those in CIGNA CDHPs than those in PPOs and HMOs.
Less cost for those with chronic conditions: Medical cost trend was substantially less for CIGNA Choice Fund customers with hypertension (27% less), joint disease (21% less), and diabetes (15% less), than for individuals with either of those diseases in traditional CIGNA health plans. According to the study data, these cost savings were achieved without sacrificing care.
According to Cordani, if the share of Americans enrolled in a CDHP rose from a current 18% to 50%, and the results of the CIGNA study were applied, the U.S. could achieve $350 billion dollars in savings over 10 years.
Chris Policinski, President and CEO of Land O’Lakes, Inc., noted: “Offering consumer driven health plans to Land O’Lakes employees is helping to keep health care costs in check, while maintaining or improving care quality. For Land O’Lakes, this approachsupports our commitment to employees, while at the same time ensuringthat we remain highly cost efficient.”
Customer: Engagement is Key
One of the nation’s premier agricultural cooperatives, Land O’Lakes, Inc., offers both CIGNA Choice Fund CDHP and traditional health plans. The company confirms that its employees are increasingly electing to enroll in the CDHP for cost savings — with eight of 10 employees choosing CDHP over traditional managed care plans.
“Since January 1, 2007, when our first CDHP was offered, our company and employees have saved more than $10 million in health plan costs,” said Land O’Lakes Director of Benefits and HR Operations Pamela Grove. “From 2006 to 2007, our health care trend decreased from 13% to negative 5% – a decrease of 18% year over year. Our employees are making smart choices: increasing their use of preventive care and the CIGNA 24-hour nurse line, as well as opting to use less-costly urgent care facilities or convenience care clinics rather than heading to the emergency room for non-emergency events.”
“We attribute this enormously successful enrollment to honest and open communication with employees coupled with consumer-focused information and tools,” said Grove. “That’s a strategy that we will continue to focus on and, so far, it has produced very impressive results.”
Individuals Making the Most of their Health Benefits
Noting the solid clinical compliance among those enrolled in CIGNA Choice Fund plans, CIGNA Chief Medical Officer, Jeffery Kang, M.D. said: “America is a land of smart shoppers, and what our study shows is given the right plans, tools and information, people will make rational, wise and successful health care decisions.”
Individuals enrolled in CIGNA Choice Fund plans continued to receive recommended care at the same or higher levels as those enrolled in traditional plans in an evaluation of compliance with 400 evidence-based measures of health care quality. In fact, first year Choice Fund customers had higher statistical compliance with 11% of evidence-based measures than their counterparts in traditional plans, and 16% higher for Choice Fund customers enrolled for multiple years.
Moreover, individuals with chronic illnesses covered by CIGNA Choice Fund plans are more engaged and more likely to comply with and complete their plan disease management programs. Disease management program follow-through and completion rates are 22% higher among those in CIGNA Choice Fund plans than their counterparts in traditional CIGNA managed care plans.
Preventive care visits for first-year CIGNA Choice Fund customers were an average of 16% greater when compared to traditional plans, with CDHP preventive care visits continuing at higher rates than those in traditional plans in the second year.
The trend in pharmacy costs for new CIGNA Choice Fund customers who also have their pharmacy benefits with CIGNA was cut by more than half when compared to those enrolled in traditional plans.
“CIGNA’s mission is to improve people’s health, well-being and sense of security;” said Dr. Kang. “During the past four years, CIGNA Choice Fund studies have consistently demonstrated that CDHPs are part of the solution for creating a more affordable, accessible, sustainable and high quality healthcare system.”