Top Things You Must Know About Health Insurance
Health insurance – you may think it’s too expensive, that you’ll never use it, or that you’ll just deal with the expenses as they come. But, you really cannot afford to not have health insurance ever. All it takes is one accident or fall to land up in the hospital and receive bills amounting to tens of thousands of dollars – to protect your savings from getting wiped away due to healthcare bills, you need to get a health insurance plan. Here’s a list of things you should know about health insurance.
Why Have Health Insurance?
– If you don’t have health insurance, you’ll pay a lot more out of your pocket in comparison to what the insurance company would pay. It may seem unfair, but insurers negotiate with hospitals and doctors for lower charges.
– No one plans to meet with an accident or get sick. It just happens and you need health insurance to absorb the cost.
The Cost of Health Insurance
Premium: Every month, you’ll need to pay something called a premium to the insurance company. You can think of this as the fee you pay for having health insurance coverage. But, you pay this fee, whether you use your coverage or not.
Deductible: This is the amount that you pay out-of-pocket each time you raise a claim. Your insurance company will only pay its share once you’ve paid the deductible.
Co-pay: This is a fixed sum of money that you pay for availing certain types of medical care. If you have a copay of $20, you’ll have to pay for the medical service you receive, whether the service costs $50 or $5,000.
Co-insurance: This is a percentage of your healthcare bill that you have to pay. If you have a 20% co-insurance and your bill comes up to $400, you’ll need to pay $80.
Things to Keep in Mind
Check your network: Every health insurance company has a network of providers – hospitals, doctors, labs, pharmacies, etc. Visiting a provider in the network will cost you less. So, if you visit any particular healthcare providers, make sure to check whether they are on the network.
Sign up to get the Explanation of Benefits: Reading your plan document is extremely important before you sign up for it. But, you can make this task a lot easier for yourself by signing up for the EOB or Explanation of Benefits.
Check if they offer any wellness benefits: Don’t buy a plan because it offers great wellness benefits. That said, if you like the coverage a plan offers, there’s no harm in inquiring what wellness benefits you can access.
