I just got through watching, actually enduring, a six minute video on “washing your hands.” Living with a son who never met a port-o-pot he didn’t like, it’s a wonder my entire clan has not been wiped out by one of his dreadful disease laden hugs, handshakes or high fives. While I like to think we are a fairly enlightenedwhen it comes to sanitization and sanitation, it’s clearly apparent we are not germophopes.
What frightened me in the video was not so much the advice of when to wash ones hands (which basically is every few minutes based on certain deadly activities like sneezing, touching food, touching other people, touching anything any other person has touched, spending time in the reading room, etc. you get the picture), but rather the 20 second rule of thumb for washing (which excludes drying). With the possible exception of thawing my hands out in the sink after a snowball fight, I could probably count on one hand the times I have either spent 20 seconds washing my hands or observed anyone obeying the 20 second rule.
I know I am making light of a serious subject, but otherwise no one would ever read these articles, and there is a serious point to all of this. I wonder how much of the cost of healthcare could be eliminated merely by washing our hands? We know that disease is far more prevalent in developing countries, so it is no mystery that cleanliness breeds healthiness.
If you have a high deductible health plan / HSA insurance, while you do get your insurance company’s negotiated rate for your doctors visits, you are paying that entire rate up to your deductible. If you get sick, as the result of contracting some virus or bacteria floating around your house you’re picking up the entire nut.
Think for a moment if you initiated a clean hands club in your house and as a result of it you knocked you annual trips to the doctor down by one or two visits. That would be worth a few hundred dollars wouldn’t it?
After watching that video, I just loath to put a link to it here, for fear you would never come back to this site again. So I’ll spare you that. But we are approaching cold and flu season and goodness knows we are not going to stop visiting the reading room, so I would be remiss if I didn’t at least point you to a site, where you can take a little “review course” on hand washing.
Hand washing, a simple way to keep more money in your HSA account.
Filed under: health, health & wellness, health insurance, healthcare, high deductible health plan, hsa education | Tagged: health & wellness, hsa education, preventative care, what is an hsa
