When looking for health insurance, you need to understand that there are 4 standard types of health insurance plans, each with its own options, depending on the company which offers them. The plans are as follows: health maintenance organizations, fee-for-service-plans, preferred provider organizations and point of service plans. You will have to assess your family’s and your own health care requirements before you settle on a plan.
Blue Cross first offered pre-paid hospitalization in the early 30′s. Health insurance became needed with the medical advances and rising costs of health care combined with the fact that loss of earnings occurred due to illness. The combination made it hard for the average man on the street to receive necessary health care, without the help of health insurance.
The most popular plan is a fee-for-service plan whereby medical costs are paid for by the insurance company. You can visit any doctors or hospitals. The policyholder pays a deductible before insurance payments resume. Unfortunately not all types of expenses are covered by this type of insurance. A claim form will have to be completed by yourself or by the doctor’s offices and sent to the insurer. As a policyholder it is your responsibility to keep a record of all medical expenses and remain below the ceiling of the plan. These plans offer basic and major insurance.
Health maintenance organizations offer prepaid health care plans. This is similar to the fee-for-service plan in that it offers comprehensive care for all types of medical expenses, including emergency care, tests, therapy, hospitalization and x-rays. HMOs arrange for medical care from the service providers in its own group or contracted health care providers, which limits your choices. For medical emergencies and if a specific professional is not contracted to the HMO, exceptions are made. You may need to make a small co-payment towards each medical expense, but it is still more predictable than with some of the other insurance types. Another nice thing about HMOs is that you don’t need to fill out claim forms, instead you have a medical insurance card which pulls up all the related information.
HMOs offer insurance that is indemnity-like and are referred to as Point-of Service plans. You will be referred by a primary health care provider to others within the same group. The largest portion of the bill will be covered by your insurance company as long as you visit doctors that are part of the HMO.
HMO and fee-for-service plans are combined in a preferred provider organization plan. The plan offers a group of health care providers and when you visit them, the plan pays for the bulk of the medical costs. You need to present your membership card when visiting a doctor who is part of the HMO network and pay a small set fee, whether it is for laboratory tests, immunization, hospital stay or x-rays.. If you have to go to a doctor who is not part of the group, you will have to pay the largest part of the bill and a claim form will have to be submitted.
As you can see, there are a variety of types of health insurance plans. You need to weigh up your family’s health care needs with the benefits and snags of each plan before settling on a specific plan.
Find your Health insurance plans by searching online. Many choices of health insurance plan choices are out there to look at. Go online today and find out more.
