6 Key Tips to Get Best Health Insurance Quotes

Okay! You have been overdosed with umpteen reasons as to why you should buy health insurance coverage for yourself and your family. Everywhere that you go- your friends house, a party thrown by your workplace guys, your parents, you are bombarded with questions on why you haven’t got yourself a health coverage. Flummoxed with your current insecure health care coverage status, you have decided to get yourself enrolled. What next!?

You will need to identify health insurers and brokers in your area to get quotes on health insurance. You will also need to know how you can qualify for cost assistance in the health insurance marketplace. The 6 tips mentioned below will help you gather the best health insurance quotes for you and your family:

1. The first primary requirement for you is to find quotes that tell you minimum coverage essential for you. You also need to find out about short term health insurance plans. This will be a smart way for you to understand what coverage you will receive. However, it won’t let you stay away from being insured or paying for your health coverage.


2. While open enrollment is on, you can get your quotes. You wish to get minimum essential health coverage quotes, you have to wait exclusively for open enrollment (for 2017, it begins from November 1, 2016 to January 31, 2017). You need to remember this every year so that you can change plans according to your requirements.


3. Every insurance option or cost sharing that you are looking for, primarily depends on Federal Poverty Level (FPL) and Modified Adjusted Gross Income (MAGI). You should be aware of these two conditions before you get down on comparing your quotes.


4. The best way of getting the best health insurance plan is to compare as many quotes as possible. The apt place to find all insurers conglomerated is your exchange (better known as health insurance marketplace). The exchange is one place that will get you cost sharing under you Patient Protection Affordable Care Act (PPACA).


5. There are certain criteria under which you may even apply from outside of the exchange. Insurance agents and brokers who actually operate out of the exchange can show you which plans can be opted outside the health insurance marketplace. However, it is really a smart move on your side to understand the exchange well. This will ensure you get local help over the phone either from an insurer directly or through a third party broker.


6. If you or someone in the family have access to affordable plan through the employer, you must remember that there will be no cost sharing in your case. However, you should know that an employer-based health insurance plan is always the cheapest of all plans, simply because your employer makes the maximum contribution.

So, with these tips in your hand, you can now confidently walk into any health insurance agency and look for the most affordable health care coverage for you. A little bit of homework can get you in running a long journey smoothly, especially when that journey concerns spending a lot of money just to ensure you are in good health.

Want Better Healthcare? Check How ‘Public Option to Obamacare’ Delivers

It was almost five decades back when there were certain actions taken to help the poor and the elderly population of America, received some relief in health care costs. With the federal government of USA introducing Medicaid and Medicare, citizen of the U.S. received certain relaxation in medical aids. In 2010, after almost half a century, President Barack Obama again took the initiative of coming out to help the needy and the constrained population of America. Patient Protection Affordable Care Act (PPACA), or Affordable Care Act (ACA), or Obamacare (more of a colloquial term) has come up with some sort of relief for every needy soul of America. Today, after 6 years of its successful implementation, President Obama has come up with an additional benefit ‘public option to Obamacare’ for the people of America.

Health care expenditure can be a major cause bringing severe damages to health in the United States of America. Expensive treatments, prescriptions, drugs, hospital stays, laboratory tests, all can even make a person go bankrupt. However, the long-standing hindrances in providing adequate health care to the people of USA seem to be finding solutions with Obamacare ultimately. Ever since ACA was enacted into law, the following changes have been observed over a few years time, like:

• The rate of uninsured people in the US have reduced to 43%
• 2010- 16.1% US citizen were uninsured
• 2015- 9.1% people remain uninsured
• estimated reduction in middle aged unable to afford health insurance coverage to 5.5%
• Federal goverment could reduce its debt towards collecting $600-$1000 for each enrolee to health insurance plans
• Reduction to about 3.4% in middle aged people reporting poor health conditions
• The health care payment process too has transformed. Around 30% of the traditional payments of Medicare are flowing through the alternative models of payment.

All these and more such reforms have made serious contributions to sustained time period of spending on health sector for every insuree. Yet, there’s lot more that has to be achieved to achieve the target.

Changing how the health care system delivered

Earlier, when ACA wasn’t introduced, the health industry depended mostly on free service payment system by individual donors. The system would levy penalty on those organizations that who did efficient delivery while they were incapable of rewarding better quality care providers.

With modifications in health coverage law and further adding health option, those organizations can now provide those advantages that health insurance plans like Medicare and Medicaid were given better payments. The goal is to align them better with the actual costs that come in providing care. With changes in Medicare payment plans, the private sector too received decreased price in the health expenditure.

ACA helps detect health frauds

Many policies were included in Obamacare to identify and prevent frauds that happen in the health insurance sector. Higher scrutinization before someone gets enrolled into Medicare or Medicaid to prevent high rates of fraud prevalant in the domain. If any organization was found incurring more than $1 million loss, were charged stronger penalties to prevent such crimes. Implementing the “value based payment,” where Medicare related systems tie up with different health care enterprises and professionals for fee-for-service paying. There are efforts to foster a health insurance market

5 Vitalities to Remember While Buying Health Insurance Plans Arizona

So, you finally realized you require a health insurance? And, you have tried reading all kinds of material trying to figure out how to go about it. I am sure you have all sorts of questions looming in your head-

• Will I be able to afford a health insurance?  
• What will be provided for Arizona? 
• What will get covered when I fall sick? 
• Who do I go to for a good health insurance plan for Arizona?

If you have begun with your research, you may have already heard of the penalties you pay in case of being uninsured. And if you haven’t, it’s better are aware that you pay penalties while submitting your tax details in case you are uninsured. And there is nothing to get jittery about buying a health insurance plan. If you have right resources and facts, you can easily make smart decisions about which insurance you should buy.

There is detailed information available in the health insurance marketplace, making it easier for you to compare the various available plans. You can check and then easily pick a plan that perfectly fits your budget. This blog is to help you with the 5 vital factors you need to remember before buying your health coverage deals:

1. Where should you look: on or off the health insurance marketplace (exchange)?

This condition applies only for those who intend to buy their plans personally (not offered by employer)

To buy personal health insurance plans in Arizona, you have two choices- buying them through the state’s exchange, or not, i.e., off the state exchange.

There are insurance companies that provide plans both ‘on’ and ‘off’ the exchange. In case your income falls below 400% of the federal poverty level, you may get some premium discounts issued in your plan. However, these discounts work only and only when you buy the plan through the health insurance marketplace or exchange.

While, in ‘off’ the exchange, there are some plans, which may have wider network in terms of providers of health care.

2. You must get your “SBC” for comparison

Always collect the summary of benefits and coverage (SBC) to make proper comparisons. The health reform legislations mandate every insurer to provide information about their plans. This is a ruling from the federal government that the plans should be explained in a standard, plain- language in terms of SBC. You can also ask for a glossary on the terms used in health insurance coverage and healthcare.

3. What will be the actual cost?

For every health insurance seeker in Arizona or anywhere else in USA, price is usually the prime criteria before picking any coverage plan. While, people mostly concentrate on the premiums they need to shell out, it is also necessary to go beyond what you are billed for in EMIs. You must check what you are paying out-of-pockets and what deductibles have been associated to your plan.

It is usually better to pay a little higher premium and have a less cost- sharing plan. 

To understand the cost-sharing, you have to read various health insurance plans.

4. Networks of your provider: are your doctors in the coverage? Do you require taking benefits outside-your-network?

For any plan you buy, you need to check if the doctors you wish to visit or other healthcare providers are in the same network as is in the plan. In certain cases, networks are different according to the plans, even so within same insurance companies. Also, it is better you ask your agency about it rather than depending on the insurer directory.

5. Do you have your medicines under the plan, what is their cost if they do?

There are separate lists of medicines for every health insurance plan. These are called formularies. You must check what medications your plans cover and which not. There are usually specified tiers for assigning covered drugs. The cost-sharing of the drugs for patients will depend upon the plan chosen. Even if the medicines are covered within the plan, there are different tiers allowed for each plan, which you need to check carefully.

Even when you have checked all the above vitalities to buy your health insurance in Arizona, it is always better to take assistance from a healthcare broker. The nature of healthcare and the design of different health insurance plans are a little complicated. Even if you think you understand everything, it is better to get clear understanding from an expert. Also, you may not receive all the information of your health plans from different resources online. A proper health insurance agent in Arizona will be able to provide you clearer picture of the marketplace.