Buying a private health insurance (raw food diet)

Written by Webmaster

Monday, 19 January 2009

By Alston Balkcom

Acquiring an individual medical coverage can be scary for those who have always been insured by their company's group insurance. Ive specialized in helping my clients find good health insurance for well over ten years now and have been a Connecticut insurance agent since the 1980s. I've outlined the steps we use to help our clients find the right coverage for their needs.

The three areas we focus on are cost, coverage and the quality of the insurance carrier.

Company- Your health insurance carrier should be stable financially and have a good record of paying claims.

Quality of coverage - The medical coverage must meet your needs. It should cover doctors, hospitals, labs plus drugs. It should also have doctors and hospitals in their networks that are close to your home.

Price- Your health plan must be priced fairly relative to the coverage provided.

The basic process we use is to:

Determine which individual medical companies are worthy of being considered.

Determine which plans offered by those health care companies offer proper coverage

Determine which choices have the lowest overall cost relative to the health insurance coverages provided

Health Insurance Companies

A personal health care insurance provider should have good AM Best ratings and be in good standing with your states insurance department. You may also want to do a web search for complaints.

You might for example search for "Mega Health complaints" before completing an application with them. Every insurance company has some unhappy customers just by virtue of the volume of clients they have. That being said, a be warned if there are too many complaints.

Another issue to look at is how much they pay in benefits as a percentage of the premium they take in. A typical health insurance carrier will write checks for about 80% of the money they take in to pay for their clients healthcare procedures.

Benefits - What does your health insurance plan cover?

There are two important aspects of coverage. One is the procedures that are covered. The second is the networks list of medical professionals that the insurance plan includes.

Covered Healthcare Procedures

You should read through your insurance plans outline of coverage or official brochure to see how doctors, hospitals and prescriptions are covered. A health policy should cover you for physicians and hospitals and the hospital and should have a good lifetime maximum benefit. I suggest at least five million dollars of coverage.

Insurance Exclusions and Limitations in Health care Policies

Most if not all healthcare insurance plans will have a list of treatments and services that they won't pay for. Most of the excluded or limited items in this section are reasonable and are included in the policies of most carriers also. Policies usually will not pay for a nose job for example. However, there are often limitations that you will discover in one insurance policy but not in the contract of its competitors. Coverage for preexisting conditions is one example of this. Most policies will not cover the costs of a the birth of a child. The ones that do will be more expensive when compared to otherwise similar plans that dont cover maternity. The exclusions and limitations section of your policy or its out line of coverage should be read carefully before you make your decision about purchase.

Health Care Insurance Network List of Physicians and Hospitals

Knowing which physicians and hospitals are in your medical insurance company's network is an issue to address. You might be able to find a list of doctors who accept a given insurance plan by doing a Google search or by calling your healthcare insurance broker.

Dollars and Cents Finding the best affordable medical plan

It is easy to compare individual health insurance prices, but it is more difficult to ensure that you are getting good coverage for your dollars.

Comparing Health Insurance Policies

After you have ruled out the companies with poor coverage and/or networks, it is time to look at price as a factor.

The Best Health Insurance Coverage for the Money

The best health care insurance coverage, may not be the best plan for you. Often the best plan is overpriced and does not offer coverage that justifies the extra that it costs. Make sure that any plan you decide to own is:

Provided by a good health insurance carrier

Will cover your health care needs well

Is affordable

Alston Balkcom is an insurance agent and has been serving insurance clients for over 20 years.

You can find private healthcare insurance quotes on his website.

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