Millions of people have benefited from changes in health laws during health reform era. Among the prominent changes in the health law, the ability of individuals aged less than 26 years to rejoin health plans of their parent’s health care plan. With these changes in health laws, several options have opened up while at the same time requiring wise evaluation of different health insurance choices. Following are some of the considerations in selection of a health insurance.
-Discover available choices
For a graduate aged 26 or lower there are three good means of availing health insurance coverage. One may choose to go with his or her parent’s plans, be covered under employers insurance, or choose to buy a health insurance policy an individual policy.
-Take you current health conditions in consideration
Drop the idea of individual health plan should you suffer from chronic health conditions such as asthma, diabetes, a heart condition, or bipolar disorder. Moreover, personal or individual health policies are underwritten individually. What it implies is that an individual policy is good to have at young age. Needless to mention, with chronic medical conditions the individual health insurance could be prohibitively expensive. Under certain circumstance, especially for individual under medications or requiring regular medications, its availability itself could be uncertain.
Group insurance coverage or employer’s health insurance has a specific disadvantage. In case of an employer’s insurance usually, regardless of your health consideration, the premium paid is same across the group. Conversely, if you have a health condition, group insurance could be a great deal. Hence, younger individual with good health should choose to have individual plan as the cost of owning an individual health plan is likely to be lesser.
-Not All Health Insurance Plans Are Same
It is very important to know that each health insurance plan is different. While some plans provide sweeping coverage, and some small co-payments, there are other plans that may impose conditions or require higher upfront payments. Hence, it is essential to keep a tab on different available plans in the market. The cost of health insurance generally depends on a few factors including premiums, cost of prescriptions, co-payments, deductible, and if policy under consideration covers all kinds of health conditions.
-Evaluate Different Options
It is essential that you carefully evaluate different health insurance options. Sometimes it is a good idea to create a grid-based comparison of different insurance plans. Creating a grid can help you compare different insurance plans based of parameters. It is a good idea to consider factors such as premiums, prescriptions, co-payments, deductibles, and estimated cost of services not covered under the insurance. However, this is not an exhaustive list. If you are not sure of methods of estimation use your best guess.
While it may not be possible for you think of all the parameters at once this exercise will surely help you know different important aspect that you would otherwise have not thought of. Moreover, with this exercise you are sure to make a wise decision.