Individual Health Insurance Information You Should Know

First of all, you should know that individual health coverage is a bit different than group coverage.  Most coverage you get at work will cover most of everything, even pre-existing conditions.  So right off the bat, if you have any conditions that are currently ongoing, they will most likely be ridered out, or you will pay an extra premium for them.  While this is not what you want to hear, it is a fact that you are going to have to work with.  With an employer group, the risk for the insurance company is spread among the employees of the group.  When we purchase our own individual coverage, we are the risk.

PPO's, HMO's, etc. - Which is best?  It depends.  A PPO (Preferred Provider Organization) offers your choice of doctors, specialists, and hospitals.  Usually it is a large group of providers that offers a very large choice.  An HMO (Health Maintenance Organization) will usually have less up-front costs, like deductibles and co-insurance, but lately the premiuim costs of HMO's are getting very expensive.  Your choice of doctors can be limited in an HMO to just those in the plan, or to a limited geographic area.  Very Important:  You want to be aware of how your plan "travels".  In other words, if you visit the kids, or are on vacation, is your network still going to cover you?  Many folks nowdays are demanding that their network offer nationwide coverage.

Health Savings Accounts (HSA)

More and more people are buying an HSA.  Here, less of your money goes to actual insurance and more to the private, tax-deductible HSA account.  You pay doctor visits, day-to-day expenses from your HSA account up to your deductible, the insurance takes over from there.  Any money left in the HSA account carries over from year to year.

For an excellent explanation of an HSA go to the government website:

http://www.opm.gov/hsa

Over time, an HSA can save a good deal of your own money and have it come back to you, rather than go to the insurance company.