HometownQuotes works with insurance companies across the country to help you find the best Health Insurance and lowest insurance quotes in your area.

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Reader’s question:

With the cost of health insurance so high, and being between jobs, how can I make sure that my children are covered?

- Karen

Excellent Question!

Making sure that your family is covered with a family health insurance plan is important for most parents.  The cost of medical procedures, including most standard well visits being able to make sure that your children are covered is important.

Most states offer a healthy family program.  By simply applying for this program you can make sure that all preventative health screenings, well visits and immunizations are covered.  You will be responsible for a co-pay, but most of the other costs and procedures that you need to have done will be taken care of.

You are also covered for any emergency situation.  By applying for this program, you can make sure that your children are covered for the regular well visits and also for any emergencies that may arise.

These benefits will often include dental and vision coverage as well.  This will make sure that your child is completely covered.  

You will be responsible to pay a monthly premium which will be based on the level of income that you have.  This premium is low so it is affordable for all families.

Nicholas

HometownQuotes works with insurance companies across the country to help you find the best Health Insurance and lowest insurance quotes in your area.

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Reader’s question:

What are my options when I am uninsured and living in California?

-Joe

Here’s your best option, Joe.

Contact California’s Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board.

Protecting yourself with the california state health insurance, is one of the first and most important steps that you can take.  This board will have you fill out an application.  Because you live in California you have the ability to apply for insurance because you do not have private insurance.  You will fill out your application, have a health history taken and then the application that you have submitted will be considered.

Once your application is fully reviewed, california state health insurance will provide you four options of coverage.  Based on their review you will be presented with the option or options that you qualify for.

1. Private Insurance
2. High Risk Insurance.  This is for the individuals who are considered to be high risk based on their health history.
3. Insurance that will go through associations.
4. Insurance through many income eligible programs.

It is important to remember that with health insurance you never want to have coverage lapse because in that situation you can be forced to wait on the insurance.  With different waiting for periods including the pre-existing condition waiting period, you can be forced to wait up to a year before getting coverage.

Nicholas

HometownQuotes works with insurance companies across the country to help you find the best Health Insurance and lowest insurance quotes in your area.

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Reader’s question:

Do Health Insurance Discount Cards really work?

-Miguel

Does anything work the way you want it to, Miguel?

Health Insurance Discount Cards are a source of getting low cost health services, but aren’t necessarily what we think of when we think of “Health Insurance.” Companies who offer health insurance discount cards are offering this agreement: for a small monthly membership fee, you get a card. When you go to a doctor or a hospital, you get the rate printed on your card.

This is a great cheap insurance plan if you only need a check up, or if you need one procedure. But if you get cancer, or if you’re involved in a collision and need emergency care, chances are the card does not cover your particular condition. This leads you with a huge mountain of bills. So yes, it actually works if you’re the kind of person who likes many small visits to the doctor, but it doesn’t work if you need large-scale medical care.

Nicholas

HometownQuotes works with insurance companies across the country to help you find the best Health Insurance and lowest insurance quotes in your area.

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Reader’s question:

What is a Group Health Expenses Sharing Plan? Is it different from my employer health insurance plan?

-A. Allardyce

Good question!

Actually, a group health expense sharing plan isn’t an insurance plan at all, but it works in a similar way. A group of individuals pool their money together in order to help pay for each other’s health expenses. In a way, they become their own insurance company. These sharing plans can vary in sophistication—some individuals may put all their money in a shoebox, and some choose to invest it and use the dividends to help pay expenses.

Obviously, the benefits and problems of a sharing plan are obvious right away. Not everyone has the same idea of what is a medical necessity. Some members of a group may want to go to the hospital everytime they get the flu; other members of the group will want to use their money for prescriptions, and yet another member will only go to the hospital if he or she need surgery. This could lead to anger that the fund is being “frittered away” or lead to personal infighting. The best way to avoid this is to get as many people as possible in your cheap health “insurance” plan.

One group—Medi-Share—has several thousand members, and has a good track record. It’s worth looking into if you haven’t found a family health insurance plan that works for your budget.

Nicholas

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Reader’s question:

What is HIPAA, anyway?

-Patricia

Founded in 1996, HIPAA, or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.

This law protects individuals with pre-existing conditions to move from one family health insurance plan to another under the application of “creditable coverage.” It doesn’t just work with family health insurance plans—it also works for group health plans and individual policies as well.

Let’s say you change jobs. Your new, cheap health insurance plans has issues with your “pre-existing condition” of hypertension. HIPAA will guarantee the new, cheap health insurance plan can’t deny you entrance based on your hypertension.

If you are interested in getting a new family health insurance plan, HIPAA includes protections for individual policies that guarantee access to people that qualify, and guarantee renewability of individual policies.

Nicholas

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Reader’s question:

What if I am refused approval for medical care I need immediately?

-A.O.

It’s something many of us are afraid of A.O.–I’m glad you asked.

If you have cancer, a tumor, or some other life-threatening condition that requires immediate care, you often don’t have the time to appeal with your family health insurance plan about providing you coverage. Instead, call the State Insurance Commission at 1-800-492-6116. The Commission will look over the facts of the case and decide whether your insurance company is right to deny to treatment. In cases where a doctor may refuse to treat you because you don’t have insurance, they will also review the case and see if your problem truly does present an emergency. If it is found that such care truly is an emergency, the Commision can order your family health insurance plan to provide coverage, or order to doctor to provide care. In cases of denials in emergency situations, the Commission must act within 24 hours. This is comforting to those who don’t want to get lost in an insurance company’s red tape.

If the problem is acute, such as puncturing a leg, getting hit by a car, or other life-threatening emergency conditions, do know that an emergency room cannot refuse to treat anyone, regardless of insurance. If you can’t get the matter resolved with your family health insurance plan, however, the hospital can then bill you directly.

Remember: Each plan has different rules for emergency room treatment. A cheap health insurance plan may save cost by requiring you to make “reasonable” attempts at treatment before going into the emergency room. Make sure you know exactly what they mean when they say “reasonable”

Nicholas

HometownQuotes works with insurance companies across the country to help you find the best Health Insurance and lowest insurance quotes in your area.

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Reader’s question:

I recently graduated from UC Berkley, and now I don’t have health insurance. What can I do?

-Alicia

That’s a good question, Alicia.

A lot of the people today who are listed as being without health insurance are in fact individuals who, like you, are in a state of flux. They have lost a spouse, for example, or they have recently turned 25 and can no longer be listed as a dependent.

Luckily, California State Health Insurance can provide special assistance to individuals like you who have recently graduated or come of age and can no longer qualify for their parent’s health insurance plan. A plan called COBRA, provided by the California State Health Insurance Department, can help until you get back on your feet. COBRA extends your family health insurance plan for up to 36 months while you get back on your feet.

In the interim, you can work on finding a job. Most jobs won’t provide health insurance until you’ve been working for 6 months, so COBRA will help you stay covered until your new job’s health insurance kicked in.

Nicholas

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Readers Question:

What is a PPO, and how does a PPO plan work? 

-Barbara

Good question, Barbara.

A PPO is an acronym for a Preferred Provider Organization. Members of a PPO are encouraged to use the insurance company’s network of doctors and hospitals, rather than supporting your choice to pick your own doctor. A cheap insurance plan will often have a very narrow number of doctors you can visit, while the best family health insurance plans tend to be quite broad. In a lot of ways, you’re paying for choice.

The preferred healthcare providers chosen by your insurance company are contracted to provide services to the health insurance company at a discount rate. Not all providers are created equal. When picking a GP or a primary care physician, you can usually pick whoever you want, and your insurance company will usually support your decision. But the more specialized (read: costly) your doctor’s education, the more your health insurance plan will tighten the grip of the PPO. Chances are, you won’t be able to pick your own neuro-surgeon and still receive the steep PPO plan discount. However, all is not. Services you insist on that are out-of-network are still covered with a PPO plan, but often with a much lower percentage of savings.

As with most family health insurance plans, you will have an annual deductible with your PPO plan that you will need to pay before the company starts to pay for your medical bills. Or you will be required to pay a percentage of your medical bills.

With a PPO plan, services rendered by an out-of-network physician are typically covered at a lower percentage than services rendered by a network physician. 

Nicholas

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Reader’s question:

What is a base plus plan?

-John S.

A good corporate option, that’s my short answer John.

This two-part health insurance plan is, for many employees, a better deal than your standard employer-sponsored family health insurance plan.

The first level of the base plus plan is basic medical coverage. This includes everything from emergency care to hospitalization, most surgery, check up’s and doctors visits, diagnostic lab tests, and X-rays. Usually these basic charges have a cap—a certain number of hospital visits per year, a limited surgical schedule. However, on the plus side, there is no deductible or coinsurance on these covered expenses.

The second layer of coverage in the base plus work or family health insurance plan is called the “major medical” part, which covers all other health expenses. This coverage is much more broad, and it has many fewer restrictions with regards to schedules and number of visits. However, each base plan subscriber must pay a deductible for this extra layer of care.

The hybrid strategy creates a much more flexible, comprehensive, and sensible insurance policy overall, and should be strongly considered when you’re looking for a family health insurance plan.

Nicholas

HometownQuotes works with insurance companies across the country to help you find the best Health Insurance and lowest insurance quotes in your area.

Enter Zip Code:

Reader’s question:

If I need to visit a hospital, what kind of outpatient expenses are covered in the standard health insurance policy?

-Chris H.

An outpatient program is any program you visit, and leave the same day. In-patients are patients who have procedures which cause them to stay for overnight supervision, sometimes even for weeks or months at a time.

The standard family health insurance plan will cover any emergency treatment, surgery, and services which are rendered in an outpatient lab like a radiology center or an x-ray department. Any emergency surgery is also covered under even the most basic of cheap health insurance plans. After all, it’s for sudden emergencies that we have health insurance in the first place.

Inpatient care is also less certain, so it helps to get certain amendments attached to your family health insurance plan, especially if you have a family history of these ailments. Dread Disease insurance, for example, helps pay for medical expenses in the event you get cancer or Celiac’s Disease. Accidental death and dismemberment insurance pays a stipend to you or your family in the event of an accident. Just another way to protect yourself in the event of serious injury.

Nicholas