What is health insurance?
Health insurance is coverage that provides for the payment of benefits as a result of sickness or injury. It includes insurance for losses from accident, medical expense, disability, and accidental death and dismemberment.
Having the proper health coverage can literally be a matter of life or death. The work is making sure your family is properly covered at a premium you can afford — and those two goals pull against each other, which is exactly where an independent agent earns their keep.
The plan types, plainly
HMO & EPO
These may limit coverage to providers inside their network — the list of doctors, hospitals and other providers contracted with a specific plan. Use a doctor or facility outside the network and you may pay the full cost. HMO members usually have a primary care doctor and need referrals to see specialists; that is generally not true of EPOs.
PPO & POS
These give you a choice of care inside or outside the network. You may use out-of-network providers and facilities, but you will pay more than you would in-network. With a PPO you can see any doctor without a referral. With a POS you can see any in-network provider without a referral, but you will need one to go out-of-network.
High Deductible Health Plan (HDHP)
Typically lower premiums and higher deductibles than traditional plans. With an HDHP you can pair a health savings account or a health reimbursement arrangement to pay qualified out-of-pocket costs — which can also lower the federal tax you owe.
Catastrophic plans
These cover essential health benefits but carry a very high deductible, acting as a safety net in the event of an accident or serious illness. They usually do not cover services like prescription drugs or shots. Premiums can be lower than traditional plans, but deductibles are much higher.
Start with the doctors, not the premium
Almost every bad health insurance outcome we are asked to fix started the same way: someone chose a plan on price, then discovered their physician, their hospital or their specialist was out of network.
We build the comparison the other direction — your providers and your prescriptions first, then the cheapest plan that keeps all of them in network.
Talk to us about the right health insurance for you.