If you get group health insurance with your employer, usually you’ll get an option of what kind of plan you want, and the type you choose will determine both how much freedom you have in determining your health care path, and how much you will be paying for your monthly premium. Figuring out whether you should opt for more expense with freedom or cheaper premiums with lots of restrictions is difficult, so here’s some points to follow.

• Network. Deciding between a plan where you are required to stick to a network of physicians or going with a different plan can often be determined just by seeing what the selection offered by the plan’s network is. Research into a few of the doctors and make sure they give quality care, ask other patients about them, and so on. You may have a family doctor that you’re attached to and should choose a more flexible plan if you want to keep going to that doctor.
• Travel. Are the doctors in the network within good distance of your home and office? Do you have options if you have an emergency and have to go to the nearest place? What happens if you get sick or injured while you are traveling?
• Price. Lucky for you, as someone who has group health insurance through their employer, your boss will be picking up part of the tab. Still, you should find out the details about what exactly your company will pay and what will be left over to you, as well as asking questions about co pays and prescriptions and the like.
• Freedom. Do like to pick your doctor or save your money? Usually, employer sponsored health insurance will require you to stay within a network, but often there are more expensive options for going out of the network.
• Think ahead. You may be a healthy bachelor right now with a health care plan that fits you, but what about down the line? If you get married and start a family, will your insurance cover your spouse and children? Pregnancy? Retirement? What about huge things such as surgery or treatments if something happens in the future that you can’t foresee? If such things are covered, are they covered immediately, or do you have to wait until the end of the year for your company’s enrollment?
• Coverage. Does your health plan cover preventive care? What about physicals and dental appointments? Prescriptions? Ambulance and ER visits?
• Extras. These are the things that not all health care plans provide for, but you might need in the future. Lots of plans don’t cover mental health care, but do you need it? What about family planning, such as abortion or infertility treatments? Chiropractics?
• Pre existing conditions. This might be one of the biggest things that you need to worry about if you have one and need to get good health care coverage.
• Coverage caps. Health insurance plans do not provide you with infinite coverage. Often, they’ll set a certain amount that they can pay out through your plan over a year or a lifetime. You should make sure that this is a decent amount so that, even if you end up with some huge medical bills, you will come out okay. Many employers will offer health savings account to help their employees avoid problems with these caps.
• Claims and complaints. One of the most important things to getting a good experience out of your health insurance plan is being able to have a voice in your coverage. You should be able to complain and be listened to. You should be able to fight against claims being rejected or being reimbursed for too little.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.

This situation is a big one concerning health insurance. It is required by law that companies with more than fifty employees provide health insurance plan options to its employees, but that leaves smaller companies with fewer employees high and dry. These companies are able to slide under the law without insurance, even if they can afford it, but for the most part small companies in Lexington are unable to provide health insurance coverage to their employees because it is too much cost in addition to the payroll. These small businesses already have enough trouble keeping ahead with a profit. Adding health insurance coverage would diminish that profit by quite a bit.

The state of Kentucky has come up with a solution, though, and although they are only trying it out at the moment, it will probably do a lot of good to help small companies and their employees with health insurance in the future. Called ICARE, which stands for Insurance Coverage Affordability and Relief to Employers, this jump start program is intended for providing small businesses with enough money to insure their employees. Passed by the state legislature in early 2007, the program will provide small businesses with forty dollars per employee, which will go towards their health insurance coverage. This forty dollar per person sum is given for each month, and if a certain employee is high risk or has a pre existing condition, then they are provided with extra for him or her.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.

Does Columbia University’s health insurance plan cover dental as well?

Amber

Sure it does!

Luckily for full time students at Columbia University, they are able to get a lot of health insurance coverage at a decent price, with flexible rates and a nice referral system. They are also covered by the Columbia health insurance plan for dental, which is something that many health coverage plans lack. It’s a good thing, too, because many Americans avoid getting regular dental check ups because they have no insurance or it is not covered by their insurance, and the results much later are terrible on their teeth.

The dental care coverage extends beyond students themselves and to their families as well, and it is very comprehensive. There are several kinds of programs, and when you pick one for you and your family you should think about what kind of dentist and business you want your family to go to, how easy it is to get an appointment there, what the wait times are with and without an appointment, where it is located, and how much it costs.

The range of dental plans varies. Some come with certain networks from which you have to choose a dentist, and others are more flexible, operating on a referral based system. If you are going for just a regular tooth care and check up visit, the co pay is cheap for many of them, at only five dollars. For actual tooth care that isn’t a well check up, the cost is even less.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama

1. Competition and law. There’s a lot of it going on in the state of Texas, especially in the Houston the health insurance business. It’s also regulated by the Texas Department of Insurance, which enforces the Insurance Code. Every year new laws make insurance policies even more complex than ever before and make it more expensive for companies to get group health insurance plans. The congress in your state has an effect on what you’re paying for group health insurance.
2. Lying about rates. Group health insurance agents try to get more customers by lying and saying that they can get you cheaper health insurance rates. That’s not the case. Considering that group health insurance is regulated by the state, the prices are the same all across the board among agents.
3. Agents don’t really know. Agents don’t know what insurance companies’ rates will actually be, they can only guess. It will depend, in the end, on the company and on each employee employed by it and their medical condition. If you have a company with as few as 50 employees, you can get rates from an agent that up to 67% off from what you’re going to get from the actual insurance company.
4. Bribes. Getting some gifts for giving your business to a group health insurance agent may seem like it’s okay and many might not realize what it really is. Exchange of cash or gifts can make the group health insurance agent lose his or her license and is against the law.
5. Knowledge. Just because group health insurance agents can’t know for sure how much a certain insurance company is going to charge, they can still help your company save up to hundreds of thousands of dollars on group health insurance costs. Things like programs that help employees maintain themselves in good health can contribute to these huge savings.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.