Did you know that you can shop around for quotes on health insurance just like you do when you want better car insurance? One of the primary benefits of the web is that it makes comparison shopping much easier to do. Switching private health insurance can be a great idea to get better premiums. Here are a handful of ways you can use to make the most of the dollars you spend on health insurance: 1) Quit Smoking: Health care reform made a dramatic change to the insurance industry by preventing insurers from using things like health conditions or gender for their pricing. However, they’re still free to charge smokers more money, as much as 50 percent more just for the very same plans as non-smokers. 2) Choose A Higher Deductible: Whether you enroll in an individual plan or a group option, when you pay more out of your own pocket, it’s less that you wind up paying in premiums. 3) Pick A Different Co-Insurance Ratio: The co-insurance ratio is what you would pay following your deductible. 80/20 is a very common ratio. That means that once you pay your full deductible towards your health care expenses, then your insurer would pay 80 percent of your bills, leaving you with the other 20 percent to pay for. If you change this ratio in order to pay more yourself, that means your health insurance premiums would go down. Just like raising your deductible, it’s necessary to weigh the pros and cons. 4) Use In-Network Doctors: Being happy with the doctors you currently have needs to be considered when you look into your various plan options. You’ll of course take a hard look at the costs and benefits, yet you also need to look through the plan’s provider network too. If the doctors you like aren’t plan participants, then you might be facing out-of-network charges. 5) Trade Up Your Group Health Insurance Plan: If you as well as your spouse both have employer-sponsored group health insurance plans available to you through your jobs, then figure out which one could cover you both for the lowest costs to you. In some households, group rates aren’t always the best potential value. One individual family plan might actually prove to be a cheaper option. 6) Routinely Reassess Your Health Insurance Requirements: You might be missing out on potential savings just due to having kept the same plan every year even when your circumstances changed. You need to reassess your insurance needs periodically. Things you need to consider include the following:
- Do you have any kids who frequently see the doctor?
- Do you use many prescription drugs?
- Do you consider tax breaks important?
- Are you open to the idea of assuming the costs of regular health care in exchange for getting lower premiums?
7) Petition for Workplace Health Insurance Savings: If you get group health insurance through your place of employment, you might think that you’re only stuck with the options they roll out each year. However, employees can and do sometimes rally for getting better coverage options, particularly in smaller businesses. There might be a number of ‘optional’ benefits that get tacked on to the group health plan which actually makes the group rate go up. If you get your co-workers to agree that some particular coverage options aren’t really necessary (infertility treatment, for instance), then you might be able to convince your employer to drop those things when renewal time rolls around. Conclusion You deserve to have a health insurance plan that you can actually comfortably afford. With these simple tips, you can get closer to a plan that better first your budget.