What is Supplemental Medical Insurance?

Looking at the way the cost of health care is escalating for everyone, particularly the self-employed, supplemental health insurance is fast becoming a necessity for anyone wanting to stay not only physically but also financially healthy.  Very often your traditional insurance plan may not cover all your medical needs.  Supplemental health insurance is designed to effectively cover the gaps in your primary health insurance.  It covers the additional expenses not taken care of by your primary insurance plan, like for example, lost income due to illness, and living expenses.

Supplemental Health Insurance thus gives you additional benefits, and is especially helpful when you need to tackle huge medical bills or maybe loss of salary because of illness or injury.  Therefore, supplemental health insurance can be considered as a secondary plan that gives you extra benefits and covers additional risk.

Supplemental health insurance plans like AFLAC offer a monetary benefit to those who are out of work because of either illness or injury.  But there are a number of other insurance companies in the market as well, who have different supplementary health insurance plans providing cash benefits for many other valid reasons.

The main benefits offered by supplemental health insurance policies are lower cost because of smaller benefit amounts, cash benefits, provision for offsetting any lost income unlike traditional health insurance policies, and often even coverage for any pre-existing conditions.

Supplemental health insurance that is the most common is the one designed for people covered by Medicare.  This doesn’t cover at-home care, long term health care, nursing homes, and prescription drugs.  Therefore, many seniors prefer to have a Medicare insurance supplement as also long term care insurance for ensuring their financial security.  But sadly, these two supplemental policies can cost up to 4,000 USD a year.

Other common supplemental plans are the hospital indemnity plans that offer specific cash benefits for the covered services including any hospital stays in case of emergencies as well as outpatient services, and basic supplemental medical insurance plans that offer cash payment for covered preventive medical care.  Then, there are the supplemental cancer insurance plans providing direct cash to the policy holders for different cancer treatments and other related expenses.  For covering critical illnesses, there are policies that provide lump sum monetary benefits to make it easier to pay for out of pocket expenses incurred due to heart attacks, heart surgeries, strokes, cancer, and several other illnesses.

Another situation that can be financially disastrous for anyone or any family is becoming unexpectedly disabled.  Disability income protection provides a safety net against unforeseen lost income by offering a monthly benefit to assist in paying the bills.  For those in need of long term care, there is long term care insurance for handling the high cost of assisted living facilities, adult day care, medical home care, etc.

People who should definitely opt for supplemental health insurance include the self-employed, those financially unable to cope with inflated medical bills or unexpected time away from work, families with children, and those who are on Medicare.

Need Cheap Health Insurance?

It is not possible for anyone to predict what their medical bills could be as illnesses can strike unexpectedly.  One year you could enjoy good health, but the next you or a family member could have a serious sickness or an accident and incur high medical expenses.  Out of pocket expenses for medical treatment could rise to thousands of dollars in a flash.  Health insurance ensures that you won’t have to pay out of your finances in case of unexpected health problems.

Yet, each year many people choose to go without any medical insurance, the main reason being the increasing costs of insurance premiums.  Those who have to pay for premium costs out of pocket in particular are concerned about paying a considerable amount of money, sometimes hundreds of dollars a month, for medical services that they might never use.  If one does not fall sick or get injured, premiums appear like money wasted.

Many people therefore wish they could get cheap health insurance to protect them from unexpectedly having to pay exorbitant medical bills.  But looking at the way the costs of hospitalization and doctors’ services are rising, you can’t blame anyone for being skeptical about the availability of cheap health insurance.

Current trends of buying health insurance indicate that many people are choosing health insurance with higher deductibles as these reduce the premium considerably.  Some plans have deductibles that are as high as $5000.

Cheap Health Insurance Plans for Self Employed or Unemployed

The people who have the benefit of great insurance are usually those enrolled in their company’s group plan.  The cost of health insurance is cheaper under group plans.  In addition to the discounted payments, the employer pays a part of the cost, thus making health care extremely affordable.  But people who are self employed or unemployed don’t enjoy such benefits and therefore need to find cheap health insurance quotes.

Many people find out the hard way that very often a cheap health insurance quote provides inadequate coverage.  The cheaper health insurance plans usually cover just basic medical needs like prescriptions and doctors’ visits. Continue Reading »
Cheap Health Insurance

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What are different types of Health Insurance Plans?

Given how expensive different medical treatments are, it’s not surprising that more and more people are opting for health insurance coverage. But it can often be very confusing to understand the finer points of most policies. So let us start with the basics.

Health care insurance plans can be broadly divided into two types: 1) indemnity; and 2) managed care.

Indemnity health care insurance: This is also called “fee-for-service”. It offers the maximum flexibility as you will be able to choose your own doctor, hospital, clinic, etc. Unfortunately, it is also much more expensive than the managed type. You’ll have to pay much higher premiums and sometimes also for medical treatment. Not just that, you will also have to shell out money to pay for an annual deductible ranging from hundreds of dollars to maybe even a few thousand. And the deductible must be paid in advance for only then will the insurance company begin to pay for your health care expenses.

After you pay the annual deductible, the insurance company starts paying the portion of your medical bill that it owes you. Normally, the co-payment you have to make is about 20% while that of the company is 80%. However, if your doctor’s charges are higher, you might need to make a higher co-payment, for insurance companies normally only pay what they consider to be “usual and customary” fees for different services.

The high cost of indemnity health care is what deters a lot of people. Besides, it only offers coverage for illness or accidents; it does not cover preventive care products such as birth control medication and devices, or flu shots. Depending on your particular policy, it may or may not pay for any prescription drugs or even psychotherapy.

Managed care health insurance: It is almost the opposite of what indemnity care insurance signifies. A company that offers this type of plan is called a health maintenance organization (HMO). These have amongst the lowest deductibles. Under some plans there may be no deductibles to be paid at all. Co-payments are mostly fixed and low. Also, they cover most preventive care, prescription drugs, as well as mental health treatments. However, it is advisable to always check the extent of coverage beforehand.

Under a managed care health insurance plan, you can only choose from doctors, clinics, hospitals, etc., who are contracted by your HMO, and this is a major shortcoming of such plans. You cannot go to a health care provider of your choice. Besides, you can only receive coverage for medical services that are authorized under the plan you’ve chosen. The insurer will not pay for using the services of non-authorized providers and for non-authorized care.

Most people find such restrictions associated with managed care unacceptable. Therefore many managed care plans are being modified and now include hybrid plans. These basically blend elements of HMO coverage with some features of indemnity health care insurance.

Take for example the Point-of-Service (POS) plan. Under a POS plan, your overall costs will be low if you choose doctors and hospitals from within the insurance company’s network. Should you use services from outside the network specified for your plan, you will need to pay a higher deductible and higher co-payments.