Healthcare Costs Soaring: Taking charge

Healthcare Costs Soaring: Taking charge

As a consumer, there are so many areas in medicine where we have no control: insurance options, physician choice, accessible tests, prescription preferences.

Here is a something that you can own: you can control a permanent record at your fingertips.

 

Do you realize that up to 90% of skin biopsies for melanoma, according to a study reported in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, July 2012, may be unnecessary? Fewer biopsies were obtained in a specialized clinic in the study. 

 

Skin surveillance by your doctor is a necessity, especially in high risk individuals, but following unchanged flat moles is totally acceptable under certain conditions.

With pictures as a baseline of your skin, if no change is present, consideration to following the mole for change should be considered.  Additionally, reassurance exists if your physician has examined the growth with a dermatoscope, which provides a ten times magnification with polarized light. If changes occur, biopsy or removal is indicated.

 

Mole Mapperplus is a new app with proprietary software that allows the user to map or create a baseline of your skin and moles for future comparison of change.

In less than twenty minutes, you can create a permanent record of your skin that not only can be beneficial in avoiding unnecessary procedures, but provides you and your physician with additional information that justifies a biopsy. 

 

Be prepared: when you visit your physician, bring your medications, lab results and your smartphone loaded with your baseline pictures and take control of your health and healthcare costs.

 

Gary D. Lichten M.D.