26th March, 2010 - Posted by Admin - No Comments
More and more Americans are going without health insurance because they can’t afford it. But there is a solution. New health insurance portfolios are available that are specially designed to help meet the national need for affordable coverage for individuals and employees of small businesses.
This is good news for many Americans who often cannot afford to purchase health insurance for themselves or whose employers do not offer insurance. This includes individuals who are self-employed; those who are employed by a small business or who run a small business; and individuals in other circumstances that require them to buy their own health insurance.
“More than 45 million Americans fall into one of these categories. Many of these people are uninsured or are struggling to afford the traditional plans that insurance companies typically offer,” says Melissa Crawford, senior vice president, Physicians Mutual.
The company bundles together existing and new products to provide an Integrated Health Portfolio (IHP) with a variety of choices and price points.
The IHP offers a choice of benefits, including coverage for:
• Doctor’s office visits
• Preventive care
• Hospital stays
• Surgeries
• Catastrophic major medical
• Outpatient treatment.
“This portfolio of products is designed for middle-income Americans for whom the only choice has been major medical plans with high deductibles-5,000, for example. That’s too much for them to absorb out of pocket,” Crawford says. “They’re looking for a plan that pays a portion of everyday health care costs such as doctor’s visits, childhood immunizations, and screenings like mammograms and prostate cancer tests. They also need prescription drug and vision discounts.
“We have options with no deductible to meet, so policyowners receive benefits the first time they have a covered medical expense,” Crawford says. “There are also no lifetime maximums on this type of policy.”
Crawford points out that individuals and small-business owners usually do not have benefits managers who can talk them through their insurance options. The health portfolio offers a needs assessment to help customers determine which insurance products are right for them.
Physicians Mutual Insurance Company and Physicians Life Insurance Company, a member of the Physicians Mutual family, provide a full portfolio of health and life insurance products, as well as financial products. Both companies consistently receive high grades from independent insurance analysts.
19th March, 2010 - Posted by Admin - No Comments
Most Americans are struggling to afford health insurance. In just the past few years, the cost of buying health insurance for your family has skyrocketed. I was talking with an insurance agent recently, who told me it’s not unusual at all for his clients to be paying 1,000 to 1,400 per month for their family to be covered.
I don’t know many people who can easily afford those kinds of monthly insurance payments. Most who are paying them are making major sacrifices in other areas. The vast majority of Americans put health coverage very high on their list of priorities, so the other things that get left behind might surprise you. No question, the quality of life is far lower for many people now that they pay so much to be insured.
Meanwhile, many employers are cutting back their employees’ insurance coverage. Professions that once paid all their employees’ health insurance premiums — like teachers and firefighters — are finding the employee footing the bill for larger and larger portions of their insurance.
How are people coping? Many Americans simply don’t have health insurance anymore. That’s a big problem not only for families, who often put off going to the doctor, but also for society in general. People who hesitate buying medicine or seeing a doctor often end up very sick in hospital emergency rooms.
Others are simply reducing the amount of health insurance they have. They pay a larger portion of their doctor visits and prescription medicine costs. If you are a young adult, it may not make a lot of sense to pay huge insurance premiums to be covered for major illnesses that you are very unlikely to experience.
There are a growing number of health insurance plans that let you pick and choose the areas of coverage you want to pay for. While this practice was prohibited in many states, more and more places are seeing the wisdom and necessity of this approach.
Even more pressing than the cost of health insurance is the cost of buying prescription medicines. Many people simply can’t afford the spiraling cost of the medicines they need. Others might insist, willingly lowering their standard of living just to afford overpriced medicine. The solution to this problem increasingly has nothing to do with insurance. Organizations use their large pool of members to negotiate big discounts on prescription drugs at thousands of chain and independent pharmacies nationwide. Typically you can save up to 60% off generic drugs and up to 15% off name-brand drugs.
This is a big advantage for the elderly, families, businesses, organizations, and anyone who wants to lower their cost of medicine. Additionally, some programs also cover medicine for your pets. If you often care for an ill animal, this can save you a lot of money over time.
Unlike insurance, discount drug programs are often very low cost or free. Pharmacies participate in the discount programs to encourage you to buy from them. It’s a win-win for both you and the medical industry.
12th March, 2010 - Posted by Admin - No Comments
Alternative Low Cost Health Insurance – Staying On Top Of It
Some things in life are taken for granted and the privilege of having health insurance may be one of them. Employers have to give their employees some kind of benefit program in their overall compensation package. The employee expects it and enjoys the security of having good health insurance. Everything changes when the employee leaves the employer. Insurance decisions have to be made. No one can escape from this process. The employee soon finds the cost to continue the insurance to be much more than expected and they start scrambling for alternatives. Are there alternatives? What can be done to reduce the cost?
There has been a major shift in thinking by the insurance buying public over alternatives to lowering the cost of health insurance. Low deductibles are a thing of the past. It has taken some time to change the thinking about having low deductibles. Low deductibles mean less out of pocket expense. It works the opposite in todays market for health insurance. The premiums paid for lower deductibles are so high that it no longer makes sense to have them. The higher deductibles reduce the premium dramatically. There are deductibles as large as 5000 in some health insurance plans.
Two Alternatives
1.Take the highest deductible that you can afford. This is called self-insuring. You are insuring yourself for the deductible amount in exchange for a lower premium.
2.Start a Health Savings Account. This is a savings account that is used for medical expenses only. This is a fantastic way of putting money aside for the out of pocket deductible amount and any additional medical expense. The best part about it is that the health savings account is tax deductible. See your tax advisor or accountant on how to set up this plan.
Insurance is a great place to start to lower your monthly bills. We hope that this will help you analyze your next quote. Please refer to our recommended source for insurance quotes of all types.
5th March, 2010 - Posted by Admin - No Comments
In todays world where nothing seems to be certain anything can happen in a blink of an eye, we must make sure from our point of view that we take the necessary steps towards achieving some amount of sanity in life. That sanity can come if you go for health insurance. With health insurance the person becomes satisfied and a satisfied person can achieve more than a discontented one. It is important that whatever valuable a person has should be insured but health being one such thing which needs insurance more than most as once good health is lost would be difficult to recover.
There are many different ways by which you can go in for health insurance so that it does not affect your pocket that much. The various policies available to you are:
Fee for service insurance in this type of health insurance it pays the each portion of medical you get such as doctors visit or anything else and you pay the remaining costs. Premiums are a little higher but manageable.
Managed care plans is the other option available to the users for health insurance in this the insurance company has contacts with doctors and hospitals to provide you with services. You pay the monthly premiums and a small amount of co pay to the service providers usually ranging in between 10 15 this is a cheaper form of health insurance hence very affordable
COBRA is an acronym for consolidated omnibus reconciliation act of 1985. With this you can get health insurance. This is under the federal government so approachable to everyone.
The types of policies in these include
Guaranteed renewable
Non cancelable
These three ways provide you with the option of going in for health insurance. Also you can choose between an individual policy and a family policy for your health insurance plan.
An independent broker can help you a great deal in understanding the health insurance policy that you would need to take depending on your credit and your needs. Apart from that he can give answers to all the queries which would further enhance your understanding of health insurance. There are a plenty of options available to you to choose from in case of health insurances.
It is difficult for people with pre existing conditions which include pre agreement diseases to get insurance cover. However they can go in for coverages like:
Open enrollment
Health insurance provability and accountability act (HIPAA)
State requirements
High risk pools
Temporary coverage
This can serve the purpose of people with pre existing conditions.
Most of the things in life can be recovered but health is one thing that is difficult to recover without proper care. That proper care can be received with health insurance. After all it is your own health and concerns not only you but all the people around you.