What Health coverage do I need?

Today's Assignment

Determine the best type of health insurance for your family

Fee-for-services health insurance. As its name indicates, fee-for-services health insurance is a basic indemnity policy. In short, with fee-for-services health insurance you make a claim when you need to, and your health insurance provider then deducts this sum from your pre-agreed health insurance sum. The upside of fee-for-services health insurance is that you can visit any healthcare provider you want and then you make a claim – although you should read the health insurance policy carefully as some types of treatment are not covered.
The major downside of fee-for-services health insurance is the cost, which traditionally is very high. Unlike other types of health insurance which have come on the market since the conception of fee-for-services health insurance, premiums can be high and the only way to reduce this high premium charges is to increase your deductibles. However, careful consideration does need to be given to increasing your deductibles as this can lead to you being left with a hefty bill if you need hospital treatment.

Health Maintenance Organization health insurance (HMOs). HMOs are a more recent addition to family health care insurance and are popular because they’re the cheapest – in premiums - type of health care insurance you can purchase for your family. Obviously, whenever you buy cheap insurance you usually find that you have certain restrictions as to exactly what you can do – and HMOs are no different in this respect, so you have to be careful. In particular, HMOs usually designate certain healthcare providers who you are allowed to visit and if, even in the case of an emergency, you visit a healthcare provider who is not approved by the HMO, you’ll be left to pick-up the entire tab yourself.


Other types of health care insurance. In response to the high costs associated with fee-for-services health care insurance and the restrictions of HMOs have come other types of health care insurance. Notable in this are schemes such as Preferred Provider Organizations (PPOs), which, again, involves a network of particular doctors you are required to visit. However, where PPOs differ from HMOs is that you may be able to claim for some reimbursement if you visit a healthcare provider outside of the network of PPO healthcare providers – depending on the health care policy your family have.

So if you are looking for family health care, please make sure you give special thought to this and make sure that you are not one of the 40 million Americans today walking around with no health care insurance in the eternal hope that nothing unexpected happens