The first thing you should do when looking for a personal physician and hospitalization protection is to make sure that the carrier offering you a policy actually offers healthcare coverage.
The first thing you should do when looking for a personal physician and hospitalization protection is to make sure that the carrier offering you a policy actually offers healthcare coverage. Many companies that offer discount plans do everything they can to look like an insurance carrier.
The best way to be sure that you are dealing with an actual insurance company is to contact your state's department of insurance. They can tell you which carriers are approved to sell personal physician and hospitalization assurance in your state.
Buying Physician and Hospitalization Coverage Online
Often the web site that gives you prices will be a broker's website. You may enter some general information on that site such as your age and zip code. It should not be a cause for alarm if the quoting web site isn't actually the insurance carrier's.
However,
when you have decided on a policy to acquire, you should be redirected to the health insurance company's site and it should be encrypted. In most browsers, there will be a picture of a closed lock in the bottom right hand corner when you are on a secure website. Also encrypted sites will have urls that start with https instead of http.
Choosing The Right Deductible
When comparing prices for health insurance you will often find that low deductible policies are expensive. You will often save enough with a moderate or a high deductible policy to make it worth your while to take on the additional risk.
An good way to compare policies is to look at the overall costs associated with two or three scenarios. What is important is the total cost you will pay when you add up the cost for the policy and the cost for the uncovered health care costs. You will want to see how each policy will perform when you have a year with minimal medical care costs. You will also want to see how each policy will perform in a year when you have major health care costs.
To see how a given policy will perform in different situations, add up the annualized cost and the costs of any deductible, co-pays and coinsurance you might pay in each situation. This will give you your total costs. Often people who were committed to a low deductible doctor and hospital insurance policy will change their minds quickly. They may find that there is no situation where the low deductible policy performs better.
Another important factor is the availability of doctors. Before making a final decision about purchasing a policy, you should make certain that your doctor is in the network. Often larger healthcare insurance carriers will have different networks for different plans, so to make sure you should check by plan and not by carrier if necessary.
The Network Is Important
If the doctor you like is not part of the network associated with a particular policy and you don't want to switch doctors, you may want to look other plans or carriers. This is because your company will probably fail to reimburse you for expenses incurred with non-network doctors or will reimburse you poorly.
If you have two residences, check the network in both areas. This is applicable for snow birds as well as for college students.
However, this should not be a big consideration unless you expect to have routine visits away from your primary residence. If you are traveling and need emergency care you will probably find that your policy will treat the expense as if it was incurred in network. You should be able to check your policy's outline of coverage to see how emergency care is treated before you purchase a family health care insurance if you are concerned about this issue.
Final Thoughts on Buying Private Healthcare Protection
Buying Individual Health protection should be done thoughtfully. Being uninsured for a major illness or accident can wipe out your savings very quickly. Paying too much each month can reduce the amount you are able to save.
