DRINKING ALCOHOL: How Much Is Too Much?

April is Alcohol Awareness Month, an opportunity to learn about alcohol use: what’s considered moderate, when drinking is a problem, and where to get help.

If you do consume alcohol, keep it in moderation—that means up to 1 drink per day for women and up to 2 drinks per day for men—and only by adults of legal drinking age.

So, how much is too much? Excessive drinking is considered:

  • Binge drinking: 5 drinks for men/4 drinks for women within a 2-hour period. This usually results in blood alcohol concentration of 0.08% or more.
  • Heavy drinking: 15+ drinks for men/8+ drinks for women per week.

Excessive drinking increases your risk for injuries and violence, as well as high blood pressure and chronic diseases, like liver cirrhosis, pancreatitis, and cancer of the liver, mouth or throat.

Just because you drink excessively doesn’t mean you have an alcohol use disorder (formerly called alcoholism). However, if you’re wondering if you should be concerned, get answers with this confidential online quiz, and examine the role that alcohol plays in your life.

Drinking is a problem if it causes trouble in your relationships, at work, in social activities, or in how you think and feel. Talk with a doctor if you are concerned that you, or someone in your family, might have a drinking problem.

SAFE SHOTS: Vaccines Prevent Illness and Death

Did you know that vaccines are among the safest medical products available? Before a vaccine is approved for use in the U.S., it goes through years of careful testing to make sure it is safe and effective. Once a vaccine is licensed, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control (CDC) continue to monitor its production and use and make sure there are no safety concerns.

Thanks to vaccines, many serious diseases that cause illness, disability and death—like diphtheria, polio and tetanus— have virtually disappeared in the US. By the way, You’re never too old for vaccines (INFOGRAPHIC).

However, vaccinations are not as readily available in many parts of the world. Outbreaks occur in the US when unvaccinated travelers become infected in another country, then bring the disease back to the US and infect unvaccinated people.

Talk with your doctor about recommended vaccines for yourself and your family, and reduce your risk of getting sick and spreading disease.

CRISIS CARE: Your Health Plan Helps When You Need It Most

Dealing with catastrophic health issues, such as terminal illness or a life-threatening injury, is uncharted territory for most people.

You’ll find a new page on the Health Trust website, Life-Threating Illness, Injury and Death, that describes how the Trust steps in to help with services and benefits like these:

  • Case Management: Offers an advocate and coordinator for the patient’s care.
  • Palliative Care: Provides relief from physical symptoms and emotional stress.
  • Hospice Care: Pain relief during the final stage of a terminal illness.
  • Advance Health Care Directive: Helping you create a living will.
  • Terminal Illness: Benefits for those enrolled Life, Accidental Death and Dismemberment (AD&D) and Long-Term Disability (LTD) Insurance coverage.
  • Death: Benefits for beneficiaries of participants covered by Life, Accidental Death and Dismemberment (AD&D) or Long-Term Disability (LTD) including waiver of premium and accelerated benefit.
  • Grief Support: Helping survivors cope with grief.

Tip: You’ll find this page on the Health Trust website under My Life Events.

MEDSAVVY: For You and Your Loved Ones

MedSavvy is a valuable resource for PAT Early Retiree Members, giving them an online tool to help choose, buy and use medications wisely … for themselves, as well as those they care for.

Here’s how Jory C. (an employee of a MedSavvy affiliate company) used MedSavvy when he and his wife had to choose between two medications for their child’s treatment. While he was in the doctor's office, he opened up MedSavvy to compare their options.

“I was able to look up the two different drugs and see that the one the doctor recommended was more than $800 per month,” Jory said. MedSavvy showed an alternative medicine that only cost $13 per month, and provided in-depth information regarding the medicine.

“This allowed us to have an educated conversation with our daughter's doctor and saved us a lot of money,” he said. “I was so grateful to be able to utilize this tool.”

Register Today – There’s No Cost to You

PAT Early Retiree Members who are Regence participants can login to their account on regence.com or the Regence mobile app and click the MedSavvy link from the member dashboard. Non-Regence participants can go to MedSavvy.com and use the registration code EDUCATE. Or, text EDUCATE to 77417 to receive a customized registration link.

KEEP IT CURRENT: Use Online Checklist to Update Your Information

When your mailing address, email or phone number change, notify your benefit partners right away to make sure there’s no delay to your claim payment processing and that you continue to receive important benefit information on time.

We’ve created an online checklist that’s easy to use and helps you inform everyone that needs to know:

  • The Trust Administrative Office
  • Portland Public Schools
  • Your providers (medical, prescription, dental, vision, LTD, Life and AD&D)
  • Your Union

On sdtrust.com, you’ll find this checklist under My Life Events, Change of Address.

IMPORTANT: Early Retirees and Substitute Teachers, you might not be receiving important benefit information! Please go to edge.zenith-american.com today and make sure the Trust Administrative Office has your current email address.

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