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Understanding Your Health Insurance Policy
Health insurance is a very important benefit for you in your life but they don't make understanding the policies very easy. The insurance business has it's own language and understanding these terms is crucial for your knowledge of what coverage you have. Here are some of the most widely used terms and what they mean to you.
The deductible is the expense you will incur out of your own pocket before the company pays their percentages on procedures. These deductible amounts can vary widely and if you choose a high deductible plan your premium cost will be less expensive. This figure is very important to your coverage and expenses. Reviewing Co Pays in your policy is a must as this is the expense you will pay for each visit or procedure. This can be a percentage or dollar figure depending on the policy. As this money comes out of your pocket you want to know this section of your policy very well. While you're looking at this attempt to find if the co pays are different for different services, like $20 for doctor visit or $150 for emergency room.
Lifetime Coverage Amount - This is the maximum dollar amount that your policy will pay for you in your lifetime. Once you exceed this amount then the insurance will stop covering you. It may not be so important now, but if you have a serious illness this amount can come very quickly.
Out of Pocket Maximums refer to the expenses you will be paying up to a certain amount, at which time the insurance will pay 100%. This clause is excellent as it affords you the knowledge of the total amount of money you will be paying from your expenses.
There will be Exclusions included in the policy, all of them have them, there are things insurance just won't cover. Most have them listed altogether but some may have them everywhere. Also doublecheck to see if there are referrals required or prequalification/precertification requirements. Choice of providers is crucial also, you need to see their list because going to their preferred providers will be the cheapest out of pocket.
Ethan_Kalvin
