Health insurance is a kind of agreement between you and your insurance company that you need in case you get sick and need medical help. Unfortunately, usually people get interested in their health insurance only when something bad happens – only to find out that they have a 3,000 deductible or some important things you need (such as a wheelchair) are not included into the policy. Before you get a health insurance policy it’s recommended to review all of them and find the one that will give you most coverage.
Almost all health insurance policies cover emergency services and whenever you have to go to the hospital and receive the treatment the cost will be covered less the deductible specified in the policy. A basic deductible for emergency room treatment can start at $50 and it should be mentioned that insurance companies are very particular about conditions that can be considered an emergency. If you have flu it’s probably not going to be covered, unless your fever is way too high. Your health insurance is likely to cover annual check-ups, with their number specified by the policy. If you need to see your doctor more often than it’s usual you need to look for a health insurance policy that soul be more comprehensive and would provide you with more coverage. Vision services are usually covered, including one visit to the eye doctor a year, while glasses and contact lenses are not covered in most cases, especially if you have a basic health policy.
Hardware coverage is required for people wearing glasses or contact lenses. Certain diagnostic services that are considered to be reasonable by your insurance company (X-rays and other procedures intended to diagnose certain conditions). You may not qualify for coverage if the symptoms you have are not considered to be serious enough – so it’s always best to call our insurance company with this question. If you are planning to have a surgery a pre-authorization from you insurance company is required. The necessity of the surgery will be evaluated by the doctor and the request is supposed to be sent by your health care provider. This can take up to 30 days. So, in general you need to keep in mind that most insurance companies will not be paying 100% of your medical costs, and in most cases you will have to co-pay from 10 to 50% of each medical bill you get. Before you purchase a health insurance policy it’s worth thinking about how much you are ready to pay out of your pocket for the service provided, and if that amount is not too high be ready to purchase a standard or above health insurance policy with maximum coverage.
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Filed under Health Insurance by on Jan 9th, 2010. Comment. 
With exception to the Swine Flu running rampant in space you inhabit, or maybe a weather forecast for a sunny Friday after a long work week, no one truly plans to be sick. So when you develop a nasty cough or stubborn fever, you’re left with a few choices. Primary Care Physicians, who serve as gatekeepers to your medical records, are usually booked up for days during cold and flu season. The emergency room is no place for the flu. Aside from your obviously non-life-threatening condition, you’d wait hours to see a doctor and pay out your stuffy nose for the inconvenience. You could bury your head under the covers, chicken noodle soup at your side, and tough it out like a soldier.
But if you’re among the fortunate who have health coverage, your insurance company is urging you to get outta bed and go to the nearest walk-in clinic…and Stat! So is your local pharmacy, your boss and perhaps even, your workplace itself. It’s not just because they have a stake in your health. There’s a more valuable stake in you on Wall Street, too.
Humana, the employer and individual health insurance giant, becomes the latest corporation in a long line of others on the medical fringes to align with MinuteClinic, the retail healthcare division of CVS Caremark. CVS, you may recall, bolted on the Caremark name after it bought out the then-predominant mail order pharmacy company.
If you’re scratching your head, it’s no wonder. You’re not imagining things. Healthcare really has become Big Brother. It’s an industry that’s so lucrative, yet so fraught with panic amidst a backdrop of threats from Congress about reform, that former companies are becoming kissing cousins through profit-sharing deals (like the MinuteClinic-Humana arrangement), or swallowed up whole by more nimble competitors with cash to burn.
As part of the Humana-MinuteClinic alliance, the 500-location walk-in medical center chain will market health screenings and wellness programs to Humana members. They also plan to build a shiny new stand-alone clinic for exclusive use by Humana employees and their families at its downtown Louisville, Ky. headquarters. For the most part, MinuteClinics are housed inside CVS pharmacy locations. Now that’s one-stop shopping and streamlined revenue at its finest. But it’s also a model of healthcare efficiency and a sign of more consolidating to come, say proponents of the deal.
Not to be outdone, CVS’ rival, Walgreens, also has its own convenient in-store retail healthcare unit, the Take Care Clinic chain. Even the Target retail chain is getting in on the trend of no-appointment-necessary medicine with a pilot Target Clinic program at select stores in Minnesota and Maryland. Could Wal-Mart be next?
While privately owned urgent care clinics may seem intended for people with health insurance, they’re becoming flexible in how they bill for services. Another walk-in medical facility, MedExpress, for example, accepts most types of Medicaid. The company’s clinics also treat people without insurance, although they must pay $115 up front.
“Retail clinics are here to stay,” says Dr. David Bronson, chairman of the Cleveland Clinic Medicine Institute. “That is the reality.”
The reason so many quick-service clinics are sprouting up is because they want it that way and so do hospital corporations.
It’s far less expensive for a carrier to pay a claim for service performed by a nurse technician, pharmacy or physician’s assistant (as these clinics are typically staffed), than by an MD. And since they eliminate unnecessary visits to emergency rooms and unclog their waiting rooms for patients with true emergencies, even more cost-savings are built into the healthcare system.
If healthcare mergers are just starting up again now as the economy recovers,insurers and hospitals alike envision a day when we’ll cure a cold, buy some milk, get our oil changed and make a bank deposit all in the same place. Only time will tell if the savings will trickle down enough so we can buy more chicken noodle soup, cough drops and OJ for the ride home.
To most people, health insurance is a card with numbers you take to the doctor’s office and a little booklet of paper that lives in your filing cabinet, closet or dusty corner of your home. To McKinley, health insurance and the historical reforms that go along with the inequality of healthcare in America are topics of healthy discussion, worthy of further study and catalysts for education and action.
Mckinley moved to South Florida after directing corporate communications and marketing strategy for several FORTUNE 500 companies and public relations agencies. A founder of Communicatia, Ink (an independent marketing communications company he founded while working as a business reporter and radio newscaster in Nashville), McKinley is an emerging insurance subject matter expert.
Filed under Health Insurance by on Jan 8th, 2010. Comment.
Are you part of the 75% of consumers who don’t shop for an annual car insurance comparison? If so, don’t feel guilty — shopping for car insurance takes time and multiple quotes can get mighty confusing. At least, that was true of the old-fashioned way where you had to pick up the phone and power dial half-a-dozen different agents to get quotes.
But the times they are a changin’ and now it’s possible to complete a car insurance comparison in less time than it takes to drink a cup of coffee. How, you ask? Online, of course! Your car insurance comparison can all be accomplished quickly and painlessly if you fire up your computer and follow the three steps outlined below.
Step 1. Gather some basic personal information before you start. You will want to have: a copy of your current car insurance policy (so you can refer to current coverage amounts); the make and models of all cars being insured; a history of accidents or other car insurance claims over the past five years (for each driver being insured). It’s also helpful to know the approximate length of time you’ve been insured with your current company — you’ll get a better quote if you haven’t been switching around between companies.
Step 2. Now it’s time sit down at your computer and choose an online insurance quote provider. These are companies who have relationships with dozens, perhaps hundreds, of major car insurance companies. By using an online quote provider, you aren’t limited to getting quotes from just one company. And we all know that competition results in lower prices, so it’s in your best interest to get quotes from as many different companies as is feasible. But limit the number of quotes you get to seven, or you’ll burn a few brain cells trying to compare them.
Most online quote provides will match you with at least five different insurance companies. These companies can range from small independent agents who are located near you, to the very largest insurance companies who do business in all fifty states. Depending on the state where you live, you may also receive a quote from one of the strictly online companies like Esurance (but these companies are not licensed to provide insurance in all fifty states).
If you aren’t sure which online quote provider to use, there is one recommended at the end of this article.
3. Now it’s time to actually complete the online application. The good news — you only have to fill out one application in order to receive multiple quotes. Complete the application as completely and honestly as possible. The insurance companies will use the information you submit to provide their initial quotes, but they will verify all of your personal information before agreeing to a final policy. It’s important to remember that an online insurance quote will save you time, and probably money, but it’s not an opportunity to defraud the insurer.
Once your application has been submitted, all you have to do is sit back and wait for the quotes to start coming in. You’ll probably have the first one in your email box within the hour. Once you receive at least five quotes, you should have a pretty good idea of your best car insurance rate. If it’s been a few years since your last car insurance comparison, chances are, you’re looking at savings of about 15% on your car insurance. Now wasn’t that worth an hour of your time?
Ready to start your car insurance comparison [http://www.shop-car-insurance.com/3.html]? You may want to use the online provider recommended below — they provide five quotes from local and national insurance companies and the service is free.
Barbara Dearing is a freelance writer, specializing in topics that help consumers save money in a variety of areas. She recommends the following website for consumers seeking multiple car insurance quotes: http://www.shop-car-insurance.com
Filed under Home Insurance by on Jan 5th, 2010. Comment.