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Article by Clarence L Atkinson, B.C.L., HealthInsuranceFree.com
Individual Health Insurance - Start Paying The Medical Bills Conveniently
Are you tired paying medical bills for yourself and your family members? Are you getting stressed about visiting doctors and hospitals to remain fit? You must also be tired thinking that there is no way out of these difficulties. But you are absolutely wrong…individual health insurance policies help you to overcome these problems instantly.
Individual health insurance is health coverage of individuals and not part of the group or business people. The premium required for individual health insurance is usually higher for individuals than for group policies. As long as you are in a big company meeting benefits of a group plan, you do not have to think of these individual and group health policies. But today’s stark reality is that you are no longer provided with those discounted premiums and comprehensive policies, so you should purchase individual health insurance policies to keep the medical bills under complete control.
Types of individual health insurance policies
The individual health insurance policies vary from state to state. So you
must seek for valuable and expert advice from your insurance brokers to guide
you about the plans and policies.
Individual health insurance plans can be categorized into two parts:
- Managed care plans
- Indemnity plans
Although these plans differ in their terms and conditions, yet they both cover a wide range of medical, surgical and hospital expenses.
Managed care
These health plans are much cheaper than the Indemnity plans. In this case
your choice of doctors will depend upon the approval of your service provider.
It helps you to manage to reduce the cost of an individual health policy.
Various plans work differently and they can include the following: health
maintenance organizations [HMOs], preferred provider organizations [PPOs] and
point-of-service [POS] plans. These plans also provide comprehensive health
services to the members and offer financial incentives to patients who use the
providers in the plan.
Fee-for-services plans
These plans are traditional health plans and are costlier than managed care health plans. Here you can retain the choice of choosing your health provider. The plan is best for people who fall ill very frequently and depend on their set of trusted doctors or hospitals for their individual treatments. This plan does not involve any monthly premiums and you can pay the doctor only at the time of visit.
Following are the tips to follow while for shopping individual insurance policies:
- Make sure that the policy protects you from larger medical costs
- Read and understand the policy so that you know what kind of coverage is right for you.
- Policies differ widely in cost and coverage. You should contact different insurance companies and ask the agents to show you policies from several insurers.
- Check every detail like what the policy is paying and what is covered or what is excluded from the coverage policies.
- Look out for companies who offer you with a “free look” clause. This means that the companies give you 10 days to look over your policy after you receive it. In case you realize that the policy is not suiting you, then you can return it to the company and get your premiums refunded.
- When you are getting the policies, make sure that it is not a single disease insurance policy. There are individual health insurance policies that provide protection from only one type of disease like cancer and other fatal diseases. Make sure that your policies embrace all types of diseases in it.
There are some other types of plans that are mainly pre-paid. They are:
- Health Maintenance Organizations [HMO] – in case of a monthly premium, these plans provides comprehensive care for you and your family, including doctors, surgery, emergency cares, hospital stays, lab tests, therapy and x-rays.
- Preferred Provider Organizations [PPOs] – they provide a combination of traditional fee-for-service and an HMO. When you use those providers, most of your medical bills get covered. PPO services include well-baby care, immunizations, mammograms and visits to the doctors.
Other than these policies, individual health insurance policies also cover costs like hospital care, surgery [in-patient and out-patient], maternity cares, medical tests, x-rays, mental health care, dental care, braces and cleaning, eyeglasses and exams, nursing home cares, vision cares, and prescription drugs. Other issues that are important to individual health insurance policies include choice of doctors, ease of getting appointments, convenient location of doctors and hospitals, and minimal paperwork.
In order to choose the right kind of individual health insurance policy, you should look at your medical and insurance records from last year as a guide to what services you might want to use in this year. Then you should add up the actual cost including the premiums. You should make a proper estimate of what you want to spend on your health care in terms of coinsurance or co-payments, deductibles and services that are not covered.
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