Looking to buy health insurance? Want to know how to get inexpensive health insurance with a reliable company? Here’s how …
Types of Health Insurance
There are four basic types of health plans:
Indemnity Plans – These plans let you choose your own doctor, and it pays all of your medical bills up to a specified daily amount for a specified number of days.
Indemnity plans are the most flexible health care plans, but they are the most expensive plans and they involve the most paperwork.
HMOs (Health Maintenance Organizations) – With these plans you pay a monthly premium to join a network of physicians and hospitals. You must choose a primary care physician within the network who oversees your medical care.
HMOs are the most restrictive of all the health insurance plans, but they’re also the cheapest plans. Co-payments are either very low ($5 to $10) or are free.
PPOs (Preferred Provider Organizations) – With these plans you also pay a monthly premium to join a network of physicians and hospitals. You can choose to see whatever doctor you prefer, but if he or she is not part of the network you’ll need to pay an extra fee.
PPOs cost a little more than HMOs, but a lot of people prefer them because they are less restrictive. Co-payments average $5 to $10.
POS (Point of Service plans) – These plans are a combination of HMOs and POSs. You must choose a primary care physician to oversee your healthcare treatment, but you can see a non-network physician without having to pay extra fees if your primary care physician refers you to him.
POS plans cost a little more the PPOs and HMOs, but are more flexible. Co-payments are about the same as for HMOs and PPOs.
Which Plan is Best?
In order to determine which health insurance plan will best meet your needs, you need to find out the following:
* Does the plan cover the services you need?
* What co-pays, deductibles, and coinsurances does the plan have?
* How much freedom do you have in choosing your own physician?
* What is the waiting period for pre-existing conditions?
Inexpensive Health Insurance
In order to get the best rates on health insurance you need to comparison shop. Thanks to the Internet, you don’t have to spend hours on end calling local insurance companies or surfing single-company websites to get quotes. Now you can go to an insurance comparison website, fill our a simple questionnaire, and get quotes from multiple comapnies.
The best comparison sites only deal with A-rated companies so you know the company you choose will be reliable and will give you good service. Theses sites also have an insurance expert on hand to answer any insurance questions you may have. (See link below.)
By: Brian Stevens
Archive for January, 2010
How to Get Inexpensive Health Insurance
January 30th, 2010Self Directed Group Health Insurance Plans
January 28th, 2010
Groups that currently have traditional health insurance can often save 30% to 40% with the HRA plan. The HRA, or Health Reimbursement Account has been around for a couple of years now, however the benefits are not widely known. It is a way to self fund some of the smaller expenses and reimburse the employee in the background so that as far as the employee is concerned, the plan looks, feels and works like his low deductible plan with co pays. Another option is the HSA or Health Savings Account plan. This type of plan allows for either the employer or the employee to put money into a tax free savings account that the employee has control of. That is why these are also known as self directed plans.
From the employee’s point of view these plans give a lot of freedom as to how his insurance money is spent and the employee can take this account with him when he moves to a different employer. The funds stay in the account until they are used or at the option of the employee, he can take the money out after age 65. At that point he or she avoids the 10% penalty but must pay taxes. One might consider leaving the funds in the MSA account even after retirement and use it for medical expenses not covered by insurance and therefore avoid paying the taxes. Groups of 25 full time employees or more have another option in addition to the above, a split-funded plan. The split-funded plan is one step below a self funded plan and should be considered as a stepping stone to a self funded plan. The plan works much like the HRA plan explained above except for two major points. If claims are less than expected, the savings is returned to the employer. The other advantage is the ongoing reports showing claims history. While personal treatment information is not revealed to the employer because of privacy laws, the reporting shows the amount of the claims and the person making the claims.
This information my help the company get a better handle on controlling medical costs and perhaps using some of the saved costs to promote wellness and fitness programs. With the information learned from a split-funded program, companies over 100 covered employees may want to venture into the land of the self funded plan. Unless the company has real deep pockets, insurance companies take on losses over a pre-determined amount. It is generally recognized that taking this on without the backing of an insurance company is too risky. Consider the fact the even insurance companies spread the risk by purchasing re-insurance from other insurance companies to protect themselves against an unforeseen man made or natural catastrophe.
Richard Evans
By: Richard R L Evans
