Medical Insurance

Archive for the ‘Medical Insurance Coverage’ Category

Medical insurance is a very common form of insurance that is available for use in your personal financial planning and protection portfolio. There is a great deal of variation and so it is important to be able to compare different policies with each other on a like for like basis to be able to properly decide which is more suitable for you.

While we all know we are going to shuffle off this mortal coil at some point when we pop our clogs, falling ill is also right up there in terms of being a very highly likely event that we are going to have to deal with at some point in our lives. The financial effect illness can wreak on our lives is huge and many years of hard work and frugal saving can be lost very quickly.

Carrying medical insurance, whether it be for long or short term care is going to pay dividends to the policy holder at some point. The cost of illness is severe not only in terms of a reduced earning capacity and a financial perspective, but also from the emotional and personal security points of view. The ability to pay for treatment when you need it is a great benefit to anyone in need of medical care.

Long term care costs that may not be of a medical nature, but are nonetheless required to allow for day-to-day living with a degree of comfort and dignity are all to often ignore when assessing the need for cover. With todays postcode lottery for receiving prescriptions for certain classes of drugs and procedures under the NHS, the ability to pay for your treatment will help you ensure you get the very best care for you family and yourself.

Carrying medical insurance also allows you to avoid the interminably long waiting times that come with many procedures that while being straight forward are very commonly required. Hip and knee replacements are life changing procedures that provide very high levels of improvement in patients ability to enjoy life. Unfortunately they are also in great demand and given the constrained hospital availability, the waiting times can run into years. Medical insurance will cut that down to a few weeks at most.

Medical insurance coverage, just like many other forms of personal insurance protection, can be tailored to suit your individual circumstances very closely. Your first step in assessing what type of policy is suitable and appropriate for your family and youself, is to define what you actually need to be covered for. Paying attention to your own family medical history will help you identify what risk areas affect your family and are therefore likely to appear in your own health at some point.

Many medical insurance policies will help with prevention of illnesses and management of existing conditions. This is a win-win situation for both the insurance provider and you as the policy holder, you get the benefit of better medical check-ups that may lead to a healthier and illness free life while the insurance company saves money by not having to pay claims given it has a healthier policy holder!

Choosing medical insurance to form part of your familys protection and financial portfolio makes very good sense. It is a policy that you are likely to claim on in the future and will come to rely upon on when making sure that illness does not spread to your financial health and future. After all, there can be no price attached to achieving peace of mind for you and your family.

Many of us feel that the health insurance crisis in the United States affects and will affect others.  They have always had medical insurance policies and believe that they always will have coverage.  However, there are immense holes in our current system and it is far too easy to fall into one of them.

Health insurance agents hear this story over and over again.  A woman, let’s call her Susan, will call looking for healthcare coverage.  Susan has worked since she graduated from college and has never been without coverage.  

She lost her group health care insurance about a year ago when she became too sick to do her job.  She took the COBRA option.  Now she is nearing the end of her eighteen month eligibility for COBRA and wants to get an individual health INSURANCE policy.  

Her condition stops her from being employable, but she feels fine.  She is able to do most of the things she wants to do.  Her doctor has told her that she is doing fine.  From a longevity point of view she is.  With proper care, she will live a long life.  However, from an insurability standpoint, she is not.  The treatment the doctor expects her to get would be expensive and will cost them more than the premiums they can charge Susan.  Susan is shocked when she hears this.  

Susan might break down in tears.  She might be uncontrollably upset.  She has worked all her life and has played by the rules.  Susan believes that Susan should qualify for affordable health care.  

Susan learns from the agent that there is a state-sponsored program that she will qualify for.  However, it is two or three times the cost of the COBRA plan that Susan can barely afford.  So although there is a medical insurance plan that she qualifies for medically, she cannot possibly afford to pay for it.  Susan is out of work and has cut back on everything in order to survive.

What does Susan do?  She might do nothing besides hope that she has no major health care event until she qualifies for Medicare.  She might purchase the state-sponsored program with help from her daughter.  Either way she will probably worry about her health and her financial standing all the time.

Another call medical insurance brokers get a lot is the one from Bill.  Bill’s daughter Lisa has been insured on his health insurance policy since her birth.  Lisa is now an adult and is about to be kicked off his policy due to her age.  

Lisa has all appearances of a state of wellness, but she has a disease that attacks her heart.  She takes a pricey medicine that allows her to do everything she wants to do.  So long as she takes her Rx she’s fine.   No one outside of her family and very close friends know that she has ever had a sickness more severe than the flu.

Lisa has had health coverage since her conception, but now cannot get affordable health coverage  because she has aged out of her parents’ policy and is uninsurable in the private market.  She is faced with the prospect of doing without her medicine and putting her health at risk.  She might ask her parents to help pay for an expensive state-sponsored program .  Lisa doesn’t know that they can only afford to do this at the expense of their retirement.  They have just finished paying for Lisa’s education and had planned to put any extra money they earn over the next ten years into their retirement fund.

There are hundreds of thousands of Lisas and Susans around the country.  These are People who have played by the rules and have lost their job-based coverage due to an accident or sickness.  

When medical insurance is tied into your job, if you lose your job or you lose your medical insurance coverage.  Cancer or a heart attack an accident can keep you from getting a job.  When you are no longer able to work, chances are you will no longer be eligible for your employment based healthcare insurance coverage.  This can mean that you die before your time because you cannot afford to pay for healthcare care or healthcare insurance when you are no longer going to work.

America’s existing health care care system ruins the lives of hard working Americans.  People not in the insurance business fail to realize and accept is that even those who have worked hard all their lives and have done what they could to keep their health insurance through their companies can have their golden years devastated in our existing system.  You lose your health, then you lose your job, then you lose your healthcare insurance, then you lose your house.  And there isn’t much you can do about it in the existing system.

Major medical insurance cover is the name given to one particular form of what is commonly referred to today as indemnity or fee-for-service health insurance.

Escalating medical costs these days mean that we are progressively moving away from traditional types of medical insurance and the original fee-for-service medical insurance plan is rapidly being replaced by a number of other plans including HMO (health maintenance organization) plans, PPO (preferred provider organization) plans and POS (point of service) plans.

Basically fee-for-service medical insurance plans are designed to cover unforeseen medical expenses due to illness or injury and give plan holders significant freedom in picking where treatment is taken and by whom such treatment is given. Fee-for-service plan holders are also usually responsible for paying for treatment and for then reclaiming the cost from their insurer.

Newer plans by contrast focus much more on routine medical care with the intention of avoiding unnecessary costs by keeping plan holders well and identifying problems at a very early stage when they are hopefully simple to treat. These newer plans simplify administration for plan holders but also take away much of the freedom to decide where and from whom treatment is to be received.

Most people today are covered by the newer types of medical insurance instead of by traditional fee-for-service plans primarily not only because of their reduced cost but also because there is a lot less administration when it comes to making claims against your plan. In addition, a rising number of employers who offer group health insurance plans for their employees are also opting for these newer types of plan. All the same, there is still a large number of people who want the freedom of choice which a fee-for-service plan gives them and it is here that you may want to look at major medical insurance coverage.

Fee-for-service plans provide three forms of coverage; basic health insurance, major medical insurance and comprehensive insurance.

Basic health insurance plans vary from one insurer to the next but will usually cover hospital treatment (plus the cost of room and board), some hospital services (like x-rays and medicine), surgery (whether done in hospital or another recognized surgery center) and some doctors visits.

By contrast major medical insurance plans are designed to cover the treatment of long-term and high cost illnesses and injuries and both in and out-patient expenses associated with such illnesses and injuries.

Finally, comprehensive insurance cover is merely a plan which encompasses both basic and major medical coverage.

Perhaps not surprisingly major medical insurance is a popular choice as many people are only too happy to pay the day to day cost of medical care but are worried about how they would cope in the event of a major illness or accident which might involve large medical expense which could drag on for weeks, months or even years.

Sadly, the security and choice that is provided by major medical insurance is reflected in the cost of fee-for-service plans generally and thus it is increasingly becoming an option which a lot of people would like to select but one which is simple becoming too expensive.