Published on: 13 February 2019
Last Updated on: 08 August 2019
Choosing a funeral director is not a shopping task that any sensible person would enjoy undertaking. But choosing the right professional for the occasion will help save time, money, and stress when emotions are already running high. There are many things to look for in a good funeral director on the market. Your research plays an important part in this regard. Here are some tips to consider when choosing a reputable funeral director in town.
The fee charged by the funeral service should cover all the standard features of a contemporary funeral. Besides, there are additional extras that you could request depending on your needs and budget. The service should usually include the coffin, the hearse, and the service itself. It may also include the collection, preparation, and transportation of the deceased. But the cost involved in embalming the body isn’t included in the fee. Here are some other things that you need to check with the funeral director.
The cost involved in arranging a funeral procession
The cost of religious officials
Do they offer payment plans or do you need to pay upfront?
Whether you get a basic coffin or an eco-friendly coffin for the cost of the package
Finding the right price that matches your needs and budget is important when choosing a good funeral director. In fact, the average funeral cost is almost double compared to the amount you had to pay 5-7 years ago. Since more than 75% of the funerals in the country are cremations, the option might be more cost-effective than a burial. Most clients go with word of mouth and recommendations from someone they trust while there are some who prefer to shop around when choosing a good funeral service in town. No matter what method you use to find a reputable service provider, you should make sure to perform the necessary research involved in choosing the best candidate for the process. That will help save both your time and money.
The best thing is to look for a funeral director service with a membership of a trade organization such as the AFDA – Australian Funeral Directors Association. A professional director will be in touch with the client before the funeral as well as on the day of the funeral. They should offer support and reassurance while dealing with the necessary paperwork. They should see that all the wishes of the client and the deceased are carried out according to the plan. The client may not be in a position to pay attention to every detail of the process considering the emotional state he or she is in. That is why it is important to choose a professional and experienced funeral director service at all times. Such a service is in a better position to deal with all the intricacies of the situation.
The aforementioned article provides information on what you should look for when choosing a reliable funeral director in town.
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Researchers have concluded that living alone, being socially isolated, and feeling lonely can pose significant health risks, particularly in older adults. Although the terms living alone, social isolation and loneliness are often used interchangeably, they are not the same thing. Specifically, living alone and being socially isolated are objective determinations either that a person lives solo, or has few relationships or infrequent social contact. According to the Administration on Aging (a division within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services), nearly one-third (28%) of non-institutionalized adults 65 and older – 13.8 million people – live alone. Despite living alone, however, these adults may or may not be included within the category of social isolation depending on the nature of their relationships and the frequency of their social contacts.
In contrast, loneliness is determined on a subjective basis. Loneliness is based on a person’s individual feelings of disconnectedness, isolation, or not belonging. Said differently, loneliness arises because of the divergence between a person’s desired level of social connection and the actual level of connection. To be clear, a person living alone may not necessarily feel lonely, whereas someone living with a number of other people may still experience loneliness.
Risk Factors
A recent survey of older adults determined that 43% feel lonely on a regular basis. More concerning is that among those who report feeling lonely, there is a 45% increased mortality risk. Steve Cole, the director of the Social Genomics Core Laboratory at UCLA, explains: “Loneliness acts as a fertilizer for other diseases. The biology of loneliness can accelerate the buildup of plaque in the arteries, help cancer cells grow and spread, and promote inflammation in the brain leading to Alzheimer’s disease. Loneliness promotes several different types of wear and tear on the body.”
Research has established links between living alone, social isolation, and loneliness to a variety of physical and mental conditions, including high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity, a weakened immune system, anxiety, depression, cognitive decline, Alzheimer’s disease, and even death. Indeed, a recent meta-analysis – representing cumulative evidence from 148 studies involving over 300,000 participants – determined that greater social connection is associated with a 50% reduced risk of early death. A second meta-analysis by the same researchers – representing cumulative evidence from 70 studies involving more than 3.4 million participants followed for an average of 7 years – similarly concluded that living alone (objective determination), social isolation (objective) and loneliness (subjective) each had a significant effect on the risk of mortality. Specifically, the analysis concluded that the likelihood of death increased a statistically significant 26% for loneliness, 29% for social isolation, and 32% for living alone. To put those risks in context, the researchers determined that the magnitude of risk is comparable to – and in some cases even exceeds – other well-accepted risk factors such as smoking (up to 15 cigarettes a day), obesity, lack of physical exercise and high blood pressure.
Loneliness has also been associated with increased emergency admissions to a hospital, longer length of stays, and delayed discharges. In fact, a November 2017 study concluded that the lack of social contacts among older adults is associated with an estimated annual increase in Medicare spending of $6.7 billion.
One Can Be the Loneliest Number, But it Doesn’t Have to Be
Greg Bishop, an attorney in Park City, suggests that retirement is a great opportunity to develop the types of connections that can prevent or alleviate the health consequences of living alone, being socially isolated, or feeling lonely. He notes that although there is a general consensus about the potential problem areas, the solutions are more elusive. He explains that although living alone and being socially isolated are determined objectively, the underlying causes are overtly personal. For example, living alone may be the result of the death of a partner or because of a recent divorce, whereas being socially isolated may arise from relocating after retirement or from the children moving away. Given that the underlying causes vary drastically, the solutions for living alone, being socially isolated, and feeling lonely will also differ. In short, there is no one-size-fits-all solution to these issues.
That said, older adults will likely benefit from the following suggestions:
Proactively stay involved in the lives of your family and friends. Find meaningful ways to connect with them via video chats, phone calls, text messages and letters
Establish new social connections – go to the gym, take a dance class, learn to play chess, or join a book club
Establish a more meaningful relationship with a church or social groups
Look for opportunities to help and serve others. Fred Rogers – the television icon from Mister Roger’s Neighborhood – shared that when he was a boy and saw scary things on the television news, his mother told him to “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” While that advice comforted him as a child, perhaps better advice for older adults dealing with social isolation and loneliness would be to “Look to be a helper. There are always people who are in need of help.”
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Digital addiction is not a bona fide medical term - yet - but we are getting closer. The 11th edition of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11), released this June by the World Health Organization has introduced "Gaming disorder" as a true mental health condition. It has three categories - predominantly online, predominantly offline, and "unspecified" that covers pretty much every other disorder related to video games. Thus, video game addiction has officially become a mental health condition that can be diagnosed and treated by medical professionals.
What will be next? Well, one of the things that might make it into the next edition of the IDC is social media addiction, a phenomenon increasingly discussed by medical professionals all over the world.
What is social media addiction?
Today, communication is done mainly through digital channels - especially social networks like Facebook and its Messenger app, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, Snapchat, and many others. Aside from allowing people to keep in contact and up-to-date with the things their friends and acquaintances do, these digital channels also create a sense of belonging among their users. But just like with any other product out there, moderation is key. Excessive use of social media is known to have a negative impact on the health and well-being of users. And the young - usually, they are the most enthusiastic about new services and technologies - are the most exposed to these negative effects.
A number of studies have been conducted to assess how excessive social media use affects the health of users. Many of them have reached the same conclusion - excessive social media use is associated with several psychological problems, ranging from depression and anxiety to ADHD and even addiction. This affects a minority of individuals but the effects are undeniable.
Smartphone rehab and digital detox:
The problem is big enough to prompt some in-depth studies and even treatment programs on the matter. A study conducted last year in the United Kingdom shows that kids as young as 12 have an issue maintaining a good balance between their "real" life and their digital one. At the same time, kids as young as 13 are reportedly being treated for "digital technology addiction" in the United States. There are "smartphone rehab" centers in many cities, offering recovery programs for teens unable to keep their use of digital devices under control. Sooner rather than later, excessive digital technology and social media use will be defined as a genuine mental disorder and be treated as such.
Until then, be sure to be a good example for your kids, reduce your phone use, and schedule "tech-free" activities to keep phone use at bay.
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What does the term “medical fraud” conjure up in your mind? Do you picture a questionable-looking character going door to door, soliciting personal information of Medicare beneficiaries? Maybe you see a fake doctor administering tests to unsuspecting patients in a dingy medical facility.
Sure, these exaggerated caricatures aren’t out of the realm of possibility, but it’s often the case that fraud in the healthcare industry is much subtler, to the point that it can occur to almost anyone without their knowledge. It even happens in the sleekest looking medical facilities, and it can be perpetrated by professionals that one would seldom suspect of being a fraudster.
One of the most “subtle” and common forms of medical fraud has a name that belies its simplicity. It’s called upcoding, and while that might sound like a boring, complicated system, it’s quite easy for a medical professional to do.
Upcoding is the practice of billing for services other than those provided. It some cases, it’s essentially just overbilling, and it’s one of the easiest ways for a provider to earn a little extra money without risking being noticed by the authorities or by patients.
Before we look at just how prevalent this practice is, it’s important to understand that virtually every medical service has a code to which it is associated. These codes are very specific, and a provider lists the code of the service they provided their patient either to the patient themselves or to the insurance company that will pay for the service.
When a doctor is guilty of upcoding, it means that they provided a different code than the one representing the service that was provided. While some forms of upcoding are blatant, and could easily be spotted by someone who simply took the time to notice, others are so slight that they would go undetected unless someone was paying close attention.
For example: You see your doctor for a checkup. You schedule your appointment, sit patiently in the waiting room, see your doctor for about 10 minutes, pay your co-pay and you go home. Meanwhile, your doctor has billed you for pretty much exactly what transpired during your visit, with one major exception. Instead of billing you for the 10 minutes he spent with you, he bills you for a much longer period of time. You likely never looked at your bill, and it would be difficult for an insurance provider to say that he didn’t spend that extra 20 minutes in your presence.
These face-to-face interactions are some of the easiest for a doctor’s office to “fudge” the numbers ever so slightly in a way that is difficult for anyone to dispute. When time or, more specifically, face-to-face interactions are the services being billed for, it leaves a much larger margin for error or, in this case, for fraud.
In addition to face-to-face time, upcoding can also occur when services billed are simply inflated versions of the service provided, whether that be a test or a treatment of a patient. In these cases, even some of the most medically savvy or attention-detailed patients might not catch the fact that they paid for something that doesn’t reflect what they received.
Upcoding is so common, in part, because it is so easy to do without getting caught. Investigators are always on the lookout for upcoding as one of the first signs of a fraudulent medical provider. For the aforementioned reasons, it’s not always easy to discover upcoding without the cooperation of someone who is familiar with the services and billing practices of a facility. This is one of the reasons that whistle blowers are so important to the process, and it’s also one of the reasons that whistle blowers are often employees of the company or facility that has committed fraud.
And that’s the simple story of one the grossest and most widespread forms of medical fraud in the United States. While we don’t know exactly how much money is taken from programs like Medicare because of upcoding, investigators suspect that it is very significant and it is common.
So, pay attention the next time you look at your medical bill. The chances are good that your facility was completely justified in the amount that you were charged, but there is also a slight chance that there is something there that is just a little off - and that slight difference might be part of a larger system that defrauds patients and costs taxpayers vast sums of money.
Bert Louthian is a whistleblower attorney in South Carolina who focuses on helping those who have been wronged, or who have witnessed wrongdoing to come forward to report fraud. He can be reached by calling or visiting his website -thewhistleblowerlawyer.com
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