Medical Insurance Organizations
Medical Insurance Organizations
Individual Medical Insurance – How to Get the Best Rate
In the market for individual medical insurance? Here’s how to get the best rate with an A-rated company.
Individual Medical Insurance
There are two types of medical insurance – indemnity plans, and managed health care plans such as HMOs (health maintenance organizations), PPOs (preferred provider organizations), and PPOs (point of service plans).
Indemnity plans let you choose your own physicians and hospitals, and they pay all or part of your medical costs. They’re the most expensive plans, involve the most amount of paperwork, but offer the most flexibility.
Managed health care plans set you up with a network of physicians and hospitals, and assign you a primary care physician who oversees your medical care. They’re the least expensive plans, involve the least amount of paperwork, but you cannot choose your doctors or hospitals.
What’s Covered?
A good individual medical insurance plan should include the following:
* Physician coverage – pays for your doctor’s visits.
* Prescription drug coverage – pays for your prescription drugs.
* Hospital coverage – pays for your room and medical services.
* Surgical coverage – pays for your surgeon’s fees and surgical costs.
In addition to your premium, you may have out-of-pocket costs such as:
* A deductible – the amount you pay before your insurance company pays a claim.
* A co-payment – the portion of the physician’s fee you pay before the company pays.
* Coinsurance payment – the percentage of medical expenses you pay after your deductibles are met.
Which Plan is Best?
The best individual health insurance plan is the one that gives you the most coverage for the least amount of money. Before you purchase a plan you should ask the following questions:
1. Does the plan cover the medical services you need?
2. Are there pre-existing conditions that may make you ineligible or make you wait to get coverage?
3. What are the co-payments, deductibles, and coinsurances?
4. Is the insurance company reliable and will it give you good service?
How to Get Cheap Individual Medical Insurance
The best way to get cheap individual medical insurance is to compare rates from different insurers. There are insurance comparison websites you can visit that will give you quotes from different A-rated companies. The best comparison sites feature online chat services so you can get answers to all your health insurance questions from insurance professionals (See link below.)
Visit http://www.LowerRateQuotes.com/health-insurance.html or click on the following link to get individual Medical Insurance Quotes from top-rated companies and see how much you can save. You can get more insurance tips in their Articles section.
About the Author
The author, Brian Stevens, is a former insurance agent and financial consultant who has written extensively on individual medical insurance.
Where can my fiancee get financial assistance for medical bills?
This past weekend, the daughter of my fiancee fell very ill and has been hospitalized. When she is released from the hospital in about three days, we expect the bills to exceed $10,000.00. My fiancee has no medical insurance (she can’t afford it), and doesn’t make much money to begin with.
Are there any charitable organizations, or government agencies that she can go to for financial assistance? I fear the wieght of the medical debt will be crushing to her, and I can only help so much myself. We currently live in Chicago.
The hospital itself should have a financial assistance form that she could fill out.
She will probably have to wait until the actual bill is received and then take the bill to the hospital billing office and ask them for the forms. Fill them out and turn them in. But, you could stop in the office and ask about it beforehand to find out for sure.
Also, she could try applying for Medicaid. They usually cover bills back 3 months from the date of application. She may be elgible for some sort of medical even if not the 100% medical.
To apply for that she needs to go to the Department of Human Services office.
Good Luck!
Hope the daughter has a quick recovery!
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