The Empowered Patient: How to Get the Right Diagnosis, Buy the Cheapest Drugs, Beat Your Insurance Company, and Get the Best Medical Care Every Time Book

This book is absolutely indispensable. Cohen guides the reader through the pitfalls of the US health system, and demonstrates convincingly how crucial it is for patients to learn to be their own best advocates in a medical system that is largely stacked against them.

Cohen covers topics as extreme as careless misdiagnosis and grievous medical errors, as maddening as the disproportionate and harmful influence of pharmaceutical and medical equipment companies driven only by their bottom line, and as mundane as the typical long waits and rushed appointments of the everyday doctor's appointment.

And it's all done in a casual, easy-to-understand, supportive tone. Cohen uses a lot of real examples, from the many people she has come across in her role as CNN medical correspondent, as well as from her own personal experience. She also arms the reader with a collection of important tools, including a worksheet to use to prepare for medical appointments, a guide to reliable and unbiased web resources for learning about your diagnosis, suggestions for reaching out to relevant experts, and even approaches to finding and reading medical literature about conditions and treatments.

After reading this book, anyone should be able to stride confidently into their next encounter with the health care system. It's absolutely essential reading, and I recommend it to everyone.