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Over three years the Juneau women developed a system for individuals to track and manage their medical bills and health insurance. Now they're turning it into a business.

The impetus came from Rogers' work as a medical assistant. She found she spent much of her time helping patients understand their bills and insurance coverage. She considered starting a service to help handle medical bills, but decided she'd rather teach people the skills they need to do it themselves.

Rogers and Dahl met through the Southeast Alaska Cancer and Wellness Foundation. Dahl, who has taught for 28 years, had the skills to help teach the techniques Rogers was developing. The three-hour class the Juneau women developed covers medical jargon, specifics of Medicare billing and how to catch mistakes on medical bills. Students also get a binder with instructions, forms and pockets for tracking medical bills.

Cancer patient Mike Miller has been using the Healthcare Expense Tracking System while Rogers and Dahl developed it. He sees 14 doctors regularly and paying their bills used to take him three to four hours a month. The Tracking System simplified his medical bills, so he now spends 20 to 30 minutes a week on them instead.

"Now I can keep everything all condensed in this binder," Miller said. "It's not as much paperwork and it's less time-consuming. I think that anyone that's gone through a major family tragedy, or a tragedy such as coming down with cancer, it really takes the stress out of it."

Miller estimates the tracking system saves about $200 a year in medical bills, just by catching mistakes that would otherwise slip by.

The system can save most people money, Rogers and Dahl said.

"I just caught two errors yesterday," Rogers said Friday. "That one hour I spent saved me $125."

One of the errors involved a double billing for a service, which she caught by comparing the explanation of benefits with the statement.

"It's such a frustration for anybody to have to deal with it at all," Dahl said. "It's kind of like poking into the dark with a short stick, because the provider has certain rights and responsibility, the insurance will only cover certain things, and they're left holding the bill."

Rogers and Dahl plan to perfect their seminar over the next year, then put it on video and CD-ROM. They're hoping to market the Healthcare Expense Tracking System nationwide.

They'll present their first seminars in Juneau this week, on Aug. 15, 20 and 22 from 6 to 9 p.m. and Aug. 17 from 9 a.m. to noon, at an introductory price of $89 per couple for the three-hour seminar. In the future they plan to charge $129.

Healthcare Considerations can be contacted by phone at 789-6735, e-mail at hcc@gci.net, or visited on the Web at www.healthcareconsiderations.com.