All the Answers to Your Health Insurance Questions

Navigating the world of health insurance can be quite a daunting task.

14:10 27 September 2020

As if moving out of the home you’ve lived in since childhood, getting your first job while also taking college courses wasn’t difficult enough. Now, you have to find a way to make sense of health insurance so that it won’t cost you every penny you save from your waitressing job if you fall ill during flu season or get a strange rash from a new detergent. Here are a few answers to some of the most frequently asked questions by people curious about health insurance. 

 

Do I Really Need Health Insurance?

 

If you’re the type that never gets sick and you also eat right and exercise regularly, then the chances are that no, you don’t. Most people pay a lot for insurance but only use it once or twice a year. Think long and hard before you decide. Maybe you just want insurance temporarily and don’t want to commit to paying for a plan for more than 3-6 months. If your employer provides your insurance, then you’ll likely be tied to it for at least a year. On the flip side, individual or family plans can be canceled at any time, and you pay month-to-month. 

 

Maybe you only need a plan for a little while, like for mental health or substance abuse medical care. Insurance sometimes covers part of rehab expenses. You should definitely take advantage of this by looking into comfortable rehab centers and read more about their luxury facilities if you need their services. If you don’t have insurance and want it for this purpose, then make sure you ask the sales representative about any support they will offer. There are certain packages out there that will at least partially cover rehab, so make sure you’re asking the right questions when browsing health insurance companies. 

 

What’s a Deductible? 

 

A deductible is the amount of money you must pay for health care before your insurance company pays its part of the covered cost of your plan. To paint the picture, if you have a $1,500 deductible, then you will not have any assistance from your insurance company until you have paid $1,500 worth of health services from your own pocket. But don’t let this scare you off from the idea of getting insurance. For some services, some companies will not make it a requirement for you to pay this deductible first. You’ll need to familiarize yourself with the various ins and outs of deductibles, copayments, and coinsurance when you discuss options with a sales representative. It’s common for people to not know this type of jargon, but it’s quite simple once you’ve gone through it. 

 

What’s a Premium?

 

The premium is the monthly payment that you will pay regardless of whether or not you use your health insurance. It’s one of those monthly bills you’ll have to budget for. Usually, the higher the premium, the lower the copay is if you visit urgent care or emergency room, and the higher the coverage if you have to stay overnight in the hospital. The lower the premium, the higher the copay, and the lower the coverage for an overnight stay. 

 

Health insurance is a complex terrain to explore for the first time, but once you’ve done it once, it gets much easier the second time around. The terminology never changes, only the numbers will. Once you understand the language around it, then the skies will clear, and you can focus on finding a plan that suits your needs.