“Insurance” Archive

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The Good News and The Not-so-good News About Our Health Insurance

Although we do have health insurance, there’s good news and not-so-good news about it when it comes to my pregnancy.

Good News: Overall, there is no deductible and we have to pay 30% for almost all services, up to the $2,500 out of pocket maximum. That’s not too bad, and quite frankly, that’s the best individual plan I could get with some sort of maternity benefit. It’s also with a trusted insurer that I have worked with before (Blue Cross Blue Shield). It will cover 70% of the delivery costs.

Not-so-good News: The plan does not cover prenatal or postnatal care. To me, this seems very odd because prenatal care is so important during pregnancy. With my son, near the end there were many tests and ultrasounds. I developed pregnancy induced hypertension and they wanted to monitor us closely. Add to that the fact that my son was almost two weeks late and I’m sure the costs were significant. I wish I kept all of the paperwork from our care, but I didn’t.

It would be nice if I can get an idea of what to expect for costs. This is my biggest problem with medical care. If you want to know the cost of something, you cannot get a straight answer. Even if you call to find out the cost of an office visit, they give you a run around answer about how many different things factor into a visit and they cannot possibly tell you the cost beforehand. Everything else I spend money on I can shop around wisely. Healthcare is a different story and it drives me crazy.

When I had my son, everything was covered 100% through my husband’s employer’s health insurance plan. I didn’t pay anything out of pocket. This time, I will need to be vigilant and apply some of the things I have learned:

- I will ask for detailed bills and go through them with a magnifying glass if needed to make sure the charges are correct.

- I will ask if there are ways to receive a discount (like pay in cash, perhaps).

- When it comes time to get prescriptions filled, I will shop around for the best price since prescription costs can vary wildly from pharmacy to pharmacy.

The last thing I want to do is to start putting medical costs on our credit cards. I will if I absolutely have to, but I won’t do it without a fight.

I can see it now…I’m 9 months pregnant and it looks like I am about to burst and I’m sitting there with the billing department arguing over a $10.00 overcharge. I’m laughing because I can see myself doing it! LOL.

Posted by Tricia on March 21, 2007 at 4:29 PM in Insurance | 14 Comments »
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Oh My…It’s March, We Made It!

When we purchased our health insurance in December, we only signed up my husband and myself because my son was still covered through the state sponsored plan through the end of 2006. I figured that I would call and add him to start his coverage in January.

Well, I couldn’t do that. The earliest I could add him to our plan was March. I had thought about getting some short term health insurance for him because he is 5 years old and likes to jump off everything, but I didn’t. With life going on, it slipped my mind.

It didn’t even hit me until a few minutes ago that yesterday was March 1st. Our son is now on our policy. Yay!

All three of us have health insurance, we are contributing to a retirement account, we have money in a savings account, our debt is going down, and next week we will be having our exam for life insurance policies. Our financial house is slowly but surely getting the solid foundation that it needs.

Posted by Tricia on March 2, 2007 at 10:29 PM in Insurance | 4 Comments »
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As With Many Things in Life, There’s the Good News and Then the Bad News…

When you are focused on debt reduction, anything that involves or may involve spending non-budgeted money can really can bring you down. It hurts your progress and it does ding your morale.

We had something happen this weekend, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t bummed out a little. But as I’m sitting here writing about it, I thought about actually listing what was good about what happened and what is bad. It couldn’t hurt.

But first I’ll tell you what happened. We were driving home from shopping, and our oil light went on around a turn and then went off again. We drove just a few blocks to a gas station and checked the oil. It was low so we put oil in and started back on our way home.

About halfway there, the oil light came on again and was flickering. We drove a little bit and we stopped at a gas station again. My husband checked the oil again and it was fine and also looked for leaks. Everything seemed ok.

So we left again. A little bit later, the light stopped flickering and stayed on and we could hear a tinking sound from the engine. We immediately pulled over and said that was that. We weren’t making it home by driving our car.

Now, here’s the good news:

1.) Where we pulled over had a huge shoulder free of snow to pull over onto (not the case with the entire road).

2.) The weather was unseasonably warm for this time of year and it was a beautiful day.

3.) Someone was nice enough to let a stranger in their home to use their phone to call for help.

4.) I renewed my AAA membership back in September (I was wondering back in September if we should renew it, but I did!) We saved money on the towing fees! Whew!

5.) A friend we called to see if he could pick us up was available and came out to give us a ride home. He told us that he almost didn’t have his cell phone with him when we called. Double whew!

6.) My son had the chance to see a tow truck in action close-up (he loved it and said he wants to be a tow truck driver when he grows up ).

7.) Our car had an appointment this week for the mechanic already (ironically for an oil change as well as an alignment), so we know he has the time to at least look at it soon.

8.) When no one was looking I wrote “TOW ME” on our dirty trunk while waiting for the tow truck. It felt good to make a little bit of fun at the situation.

Now, for the bad news:

1.) I don’t have a clue how much the repair will cost for this problem.

2.) It’s our only car.

As you can see, something went wrong, but many things did go right. I feel better after doing this, and appreciating the things that did go right in this situation. Perhaps when life throws you a curveball you can give this a try and really sit and think about the good things. There may be more good than bad.

Posted by Tricia on December 10, 2006 at 5:13 PM in General Debt, Insurance, Life Experiences | 17 Comments »
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Free Book – Navigating Your Health Care for Dummies

A little while ago, I was tipped off by City Girl’s Financial Blog that you could get a free book about health care. Free is good

So, I went to the site and signed up to receive Navigating Your Health Care for Dummies. At the worst I could get more junk mail and spam in my inbox. The site is run through Aetna, so I trusted it somewhat. So far, no new junk mail and no new spam.

I’ve skimmed through it, and the book is in the traditional form of all of the Dummies books (easy to read with a little bit of humor in there). It is a quick read and a very basic introduction to Health Care. It has 62 pages and is 8.5″ x 5.5″.

To get your free copy, just visit the Plan For Your Health website here.

Posted by Tricia on December 5, 2006 at 11:41 AM in Free Stuff, Insurance | 4 Comments »
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Woo Hoo! We Officially Have Health Insurance

As of the stroke of midnight, we officially have health insurance. I still have to pay the first bill, but our plan started today. After 5 years without, it is nice to have that piece of mind. What a great way to start the weekend

Posted by Tricia on December 1, 2006 at 7:01 AM in Insurance | 5 Comments »
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Very Nice News Was Received in the Mail Today

When we got home from shopping, my son got the mail from the mailbox and I saw the familiar logo of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan on a white envelope. That’s who we are getting our health insurance from.

My first thought was “Oh no” because they really processed our application quickly. They said it would take 4 to 6 weeks and it hasn’t been that long yet. It’s only been about two weeks since I mailed in the application.

Since Blue Cross/Blue Shield doesn’t really reject people, I wasn’t worried about it being a decline letter. I knew it was a bill. I opened the bill when we got in the house and my eyes scanned it so fast looking for the “Due Date.”

January 7, 2007

YES! I was so happy that I almost did a little dance. They were not utilizing auto pay for the first payment and I have until the new year to pay it! That is excellent news because we have a few more paychecks before the due date to have the money ready for it and we will not be as squeezed for cash.

While I tried not to worry about it too much, it was still a relief to now know when that bill was due. Sometimes, the unknown really bothers me since I am very much a planner type of person.

There was a little bit of bad news with the bill, though. The cost of the insurance per month was higher than what ehealthinsurance.com quoted me. Instead of around $330/month it is a little over $350/month. With looking at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan’s website…the price did go up since earlier this month. After my husband and I turn 30 early next year, we are looking at $400/month to cover the both of us.

I’m not going to focus on the negative which is the escalating costs of healthcare. I am going to focus on the positive that we will be able to pay this bill and when the time comes we will be able to pay future bills. As of December 1st, we now have health insurance after being without it since 2001. We now will have some peace of mind knowing that we will not be destroyed financially if something health-related should happen to one of us.

Next step is to finalize life insurance and look into disability insurance. Which, by the way, makingourway did a nice post on disability insurance not too long ago if you are interested.

Posted by Tricia on November 25, 2006 at 6:54 PM in Insurance | Comment First »
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Book Review: “Health Care on Less Than You Think” by Fred Brock

I was contacted by a public relations firm to give a review on Health Care on Less Than You Think: The New York Times Guide to Getting Affordable Coverage (amazon referral link) by Fred Brock. I received a copy of the book for free, but I am not receiving monetary compensation for this review. What I have to say about this book is my honest opinion.

With that said, here’s my thoughts…

The beginning of Health Care on Less Than You Think starts off with some sobering stories of individuals that have had their financial life rocked by medical costs. Even more surprising is the number of those people that HAD health insurance. Obtaining health insurance has been a priority of mine, but I have been dragging my feet with doing it. After reading what some of those people have paid for medical procedures – it really sunk in that one problem could easily rack up over $5,000 in medical bills. Needless to say, my application is in process as I announced yesterday.

Reading further, Mr. Brock details exactly how much extra an uninsured person has to pay for the same services that an insured person receives. I knew that happened, and feel that it is VERY unfair to charge those without health insurance a different price. I just didn’t know how much more. Can you believe that an uninsured person would have to pay a bill of $30,000 when an insured person (and their insurance company) would be paying $7,000?

Mr. Brock gives great advice on how to try to save money if you are uninsured, such as negotiating and auditing your medical care bills. He also explains those big words you find associated with health insurance policies. Finally, I really understand how coinsurance, deductible and out of pocket maximums work!

I’ve also finally learned about Health Savings Accounts (HSA’s). An entire chapter is decidated to helping the reader understand how they work and how they can be very advantageous or disadvantageous. After reading that chapter, I quickly looked up available HSA plans on ehealthinsurance.com. Unfortunately, none of them covered pregnancy and all of them required medical records. At this time, I feel confident saying that a HSA plan is not for us.

Overall, this book made me feel like a confident shopper when it came to finally choosing a plan for our family. I also feel more confident knowing some things that I can do to help save money when it comes to health care and prescription drugs. Knowing what I know now, I feel that Health Care on Less Than You Think (amazon referral link) will end up saving us money in the future.

Just a note, some things I did already know about – such as asking for an itemized hospital bill and checking for any mistakes. There will probaby be some things you may have heard about in this book as well. But, if you are fairly new to how health insurance works and want to learn more, this is an easy-to-read and understand book. I particulary enjoyed the real-life examples that Mr. Brock detailed throughout the book.

To conclude, this book was very helpful to me since our health care was a big decision I was facing. I am glad I was given the opportunity to read it.

Posted by Tricia on November 6, 2006 at 10:12 AM in Book Reviews, Insurance | 5 Comments »
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