Save time with the CARP Health Wizard

Recent studies conducted by accounting firms, patient groups, and healthcare professionals have all identified the need for healthcare system navigation tools as key to better health outcomes for patients, caregivers, and family. The new CARP Health Wizard addresses this problem head on. Here you can find a doctor or other health practitioner, clinic, or support group in your community or in another part of the country. You can also research medical conditions, potential treatments and medications and understand the financial coverage, wait times, and options available in one course of action or another. This information is not meant to replace any info or advice you get from your healthcare providers, but rather to augment it.

You can always choose to do your own research on Google or any other search engine, but be careful what ‘Dr. Google’ tells you. Is it unbiased, professional advice from credible sources, or is it a sales pitch? The CARP Health Wizard provides properly sourced Canadian information and is vetted by healthcare professionals who know their stuff.

Recently one of our members used the CARP Health Wizard to research wait times for an MRI. The Wizard took her directly to the correct web page of the provincial wait time guide she was looking for. She was able to research her information quickly. She then called her doctor and got him to schedule an MRI in one month in a town 90 minutes from her home. A longer drive, but a saving of two months’ time — and when you are uncertain, need treatment, or are in pain, every minute can count.

Had she known where to go for this information on her own, she may have researched a number of her province’s websites, or called her province’s toll-free health information lines. But the Wizard provided this information and as well as phone numbers to call, saving her valuable time and effort.

Check out this great new services on the CARP website or call 1-800-363-9736 for more information. Best of all, just sign up for this free service at www.carphealth.ca and check out all the features.

If you are reading this article and are not a CARP member, we’re sorry; this service is available for free, but only if you are a CARP member. Don’t delay — register online for CARP here or call toll-free at 1-800-363-9736.