Tips For Evaluating Private Health Insurance Quotes
With more people pursuing entrepreneurial opportunities, group health insurance is becoming less and less common. For self-employed and small business owners, group health insurance is often either inaccessible or cost-prohibitive for the size of their business. If you have recently branched out into working for yourself, you'll need to secure some sort of health insurance for yourself and your family. Here's a look at some of the things you need to consider as you're evaluating different health insurance quotes.
Consider The Type Of Coverage
One of the biggest things that you'll need to look at when you're comparing health insurance quotes is the actual coverage details. You'll find that there are many different types of private health insurance policies out there offering everything from catastrophic medical coverage to routine care insurance.
Catastrophic medical policies are designed solely to cover severe injuries, surgeries, and similar types of conditions. You won't have coverage for annual doctor's visits, dental care, or any other type of preventative care or routine illness.
Routine care coverage, on the other hand, will provide coverage for catastrophic situations as well as your preventative care, minor illnesses, lab testing, and other associated expenses.
Depending on your personal situation, you may not worry as much about the routine care costs but may just want coverage in case something serious happens. Catastrophic coverage may be perfect for that situation. Alternatively, if preventative care, urgent care treatment, and other doctor's visits are important to you, routine care coverage may be a better option.
Look At Out-Of-Pocket Costs
Once you've narrowed down your quotes to the policies that offer the type of coverage that you need, it's time to look at the out-of-pocket costs for each one. After all, having health insurance doesn't do you any good if you can't afford to use it because the deductible is out of your budget.
Start by considering the policy deductible. This is the amount you'll have to pay in medical costs each year before your insurance will actually start covering expenses. Every policy will have a deductible clearly stated in terms of a per person and annual maximum. The annual maximum refers to family policies. If there are three people in the household, and the per-person deductible is $5,000, that could cost you $15,000 per year in up-front costs, but if the annual maximum is $7,500, you will only have to reach that $7,500 deductible before the policy coverage will kick in.
Once you find a policy with a deductible that fits your annual budget, you can evaluate the co-pay costs. You'll find co-pay costs for doctor's visits, lab work, specialist care, emergency room treatment, and more. Make sure that the co-pay required is affordable for you.
These are two of the most important factors to consider when you're choosing a health insurance policy. Use these tips and the help of your health insurance agent as you evaluate your health insurance quotes.
For more information, contact a company like Optimized Health Plans.
Share