Health
Insurance Benefits
What do health insurance benefits
actually do for you? You probably hear about it all the time, whether on
television, in magazines, and assorted other media. Health insurance is an
extremely helpful part of life if you can set yourself up with a plan that will
benefit you and yours for minimal cost. It's meant to protect your financial
assets, as well as promote wellness and health. There are an assortment of
different perks and downfalls to each kind of health insurance plan, and it’s
important to know what will help you and what won’t.
Defining
Health Insurance Benefits
The benefits of health insurance can
be summarized as the services you receive from your health insurance company.
Every company has an assortment of different plans that may or may not work for
you. Most companies are also willing to work with you to determine your needs.
You can have certain areas of your health insurance plans cover certain types
of injuries or illnesses more specifically, so that you pay less for recurring
things like office visits and medicine, or you can spread out your coverage as
a more general purpose plan.
Single person plans have a smaller
array of benefits and can be more tailored to the person they cover. A person
that needs more extensive eye care coverage might eliminate some other options
in order to afford a vision plan. These plans also cost less than family plans
simply because there is only one person to cover.
You can also have family plans that
will cover all the people in your family equally. These family plans are
usually cheaper than having multiple single-person plans, and also have higher
coverage rates that are shared among everyone in the family. Family plans can
be customized in the way single-person can, but usually not as specific as a
single person plan. So you need to consider, overall, if your family has a lot
of office visits or not.
The way health benefits work is you
get the bill, submit it to your insurance provider, (or have it automatically
submitted to the insurance provider) and they will pay a certain percentage, or
up to a certain amount that is dependent on plan. With most plans you will have
to pay a deductible before the insurance will do anything. Frequently you will
pay a co-pay at each office visit which is indicated up front. It is generally
higher for a visit to a specialist than to your primary care physician. After
that, the insurance will split the cost of the bill with you, typically with
the insurance company paying the majority.
Tips
For Finding the Best Health Insurance Benefits
Health insurance’s main goal is to
make it so that you don’t pay an extreme amount whenever you get sick or
injured. Health insurance can help pay for things like hospital bills and
regular doctor visits. Your health insurance plan really depends upon your
personal lifestyle. Comprehensive, catastrophic, basic and supplemental plans
are all available.
The most important thing to do
before taking steps to find health insurance is to take into account your
personal needs. Past accidents or injuries may play a part in what kind of plan
you get. Your risk of injury on the job can also be a major factor into your
choice of benefits. Your family’s needs, should you have one, will also be an
important consideration for your health insurance.
What
Do Health Insurance Benefits Cover?
There are three popular types of
health insurance: Health Maintenance Organizations (HMO), Point of Service
(POS) plans, and Preferred Provider Organizations (PPO). An HMO is a monthly
premium plan that states you must go to specific providers of health care on a
list to have your insurance cover it. A POS is a plan where there is a network
of doctors; however, if one refers you to another doctor in or outside the
network, the insurance will cover it. You can refer yourself to care outside
the networks, but you’ll have to pay coinsurance. A PPO is similar to an HMO,
but like a POS plan you can go outside the list given to you, with much less
coverage. Granted, should you go to one on your list, you will retain your full
coverage.
Your exact benefits will differ plan
to plan. Most insurance companies have tiers of coverage. The more coverage you
get, the higher your premium goes. As mentioned above, there are a multitude of
factors that can affect what plan you choose, because they will raise and lower
your premiums. There are other factors that can lower premiums as well, such as
having a long record of good health, no life-affecting diseases, broken bones,
or an array of other things. It’s important to ask your service provider about
these factors.
Health insurance is important to
have, as it lowers the out of pocket amount you have to pay for health care. It
also ensures that you will be well taken care of when you are sick or injured.
You can use the tool above to see what companies have policies that interest
you, so you can get excellent coverage for as little as possible. Get started
comparing free health insurance quotes right now.