Health insurance is a must-have in the event you have a serious medical emergency. You never know when disaster will strike in the form of illness, accident or injury. If you aren’t prepared with a good health insurance plan, you could stand to lose everything. If you have a good health plan in place, you can rest easy that your expenses will be taken care of. You have a couple of choices when it comes to purchasing health insurance. You can go with an individual plan, or if your employer offers group insurance, you can save money by choosing that plan.
When you are choosing which health insurance plan you want, consider how healthy you and your family are. This is a balancing act, becasue you may choose to buy less insurance coverage because of the lower premiums and the fact that you have no current or expected health issues. While you can save some money now, it is a huge risk because a problem could develop, and then you will have to pay much more.
When you need health insurance, you should know all the costs. Deductibles, premiums and co-pays can be hard for someone to understand so make sure you you add up the costs of everything before you purchase the insurance.
Open Enrollment
Be sure to take a close look at your needs and concerns when it comes to your open enrollment period. Your insurance needs can rapidly change as your health changes and your family grows. Wait until open enrollment time to make these changes, as well as changes to your vision or dental coverage.
Vision insurance is wise if you’ve had a history of vision issues in the past, or it’s in your family history. This insurance will help to cover a certain percentage of your eye check-ups as well as your contacts or glasses. You are not required to carry vision insurance, so if no one in your family suffers from an eye disorder, you can save money by foregoing it.
Do a quick check annually to verify what prescription medications your policy will continue to cover. Sometimes health insurers change the medications they will cover, so each year when you re-enroll, review the terms carefully. If a pill you are using every day is no longer covered, you might want to switch to another insurance company.
A cheaper alternative to comprehensive insurance is catastrophic coverage. Comprehensive may cover physician visits and medications, catastrophic covers emergency room and hospital visits.
When shopping for a new health insurance plan, you should carefully consider your individual needs. You can pick from PPO, HMO and POS. Each can be significantly different than the other, so really consider each before deciding. Just be sure to go with one that lets you keep your current physician.
If pregnancy is in your plans for the future, make sure your insurance policy will cover all of your pregnancy-related expenses. It is must-know information since some insurance plans will not cover all the costs of pregnancy or labor.
If you are relatively healthy and don’t need to visit the doctor often, health savings accounts (HSAs) might work for you. Take some of the funds that you would otherwise spend on an insurance premium and put it into your HSA. This way, you always have health care funds should you need them, but you aren’t locked into an insurance contract.
Health Insurance
Compare all your options. For instance, group insurance will be less costly but an individual plan will provide you with more choices. The most important take-away here is that you need to have some form of health insurance, even if it isn’t top-of-the-line. If you do not have health insurance today, you could be headed for a calamity. A serious illness could happen at any time, and ruin you financially. Do the wise thing by researching all the options available for health insurance today.
