Whether you are looking just for yourself, your whole family, or for your employees, finding a health insurance plan can be intimidating when you first start to look into it. However, it does not have to be as intimidating or complicated as it seems at first. There are a few things you want to look for when you start to shop for a new health care policy. It comes down to how much you can afford to pay each month, whether it covers unforeseen trips to places like Urgent Care in Richmond, Kentucky, for example, and how much coverage you need for yourself and those who fall under your policy.
With that knowledge under your belt, you will have a few more things to think about as you start to consider your new health care insurance policy.
What Will Your Premium Be?
The premium is better understood when it is described as the total cost of your health insurance. You can pay the premium off on a monthly basis, as you would do for car insurance, or you can pay it all up-front. The amount of money you owe on a premium depends on how much coverage you get and the benefits you decide to put on. To keep the cost of your premiums as low as you can, you can alter how much you pay in deductibles, copays, and whether or not you have coinsurance.
What Should You Look For In a Deductible?
In order for your insurance to pay for or cover services, you will first have to pay a deductible or a set amount of money. This is the total amount of money that you will have to cover on your own to pay for your medical expenses. After you pay this amount, the health insurance will then pick up the rest of your amount.
If you do not have any health conditions, or if you rarely go to the doctor, it is typically better to have a higher deductible plan. If you rarely have to use it, why pay for it? On the flip side, people who have a lot of existing medical conditions or know that they are going to require a lot of medical attention, such as surgeries, would be better off finding an insurance plan that has a lower deductible and higher premiums so that they can save more money in the end. It really boils down to how healthy you are or how often you do or do not visit the doctor’s office.
What Will Your Co-Pay Be?
The co-pays are possibly the biggest thing that everyone looks at, and for good reason. This is the amount that you will owe every time you go to the doctor’s office. It is what you will have to pay upfront before you get seen. This cost is going to depend entirely on how much you pay every month on your premiums. The more you pay in premiums, the less you will have to pay in co-pays when you visit the doctor each time. Meanwhile, the less you pay in premiums from month to month, the higher your co-pays will typically be.
If you have to go to the doctor more often than not, then it is typically wise to invest in the plan that offers you less on your co-pay so that you save a little bit out of pocket each time you visit the doctor or get a prescription filled at the pharmacy.
Coinsurance on Your Policy
After you visit the doctor or have a procedure done at the hospital, your doctor will send your bill to the insurance company. The insurance company will look at the bill and will decide how much they need to cover. The coinsurance is the amount leftover that you are responsible to pay after the insurance does their part. It is always wise to know beforehand how much or how little your health insurance will cover and the conditions they have before you get anything done so that you can prepare financially for the leftover bill.
It is so important to know all of these things so that you are covered when the event that you need a doctor arises. You will never know exactly when you will need your health insurance, but you will always be grateful that it is there.