Saving money on health insurance should be a concern addressed even before you get health insurance. Typically, the best way to significantly slash your premium is by getting insurance when you’re at the peak of your health. After this, however, this all comes down to negotiations. Following are some techniques on how to talk your provider into lowering your monthly payments:
Loyalty Factor
In a world where competition is everywhere, companies place high value on loyalty and will do much to keep a client. If you happen to be a long-time client or under their service for several types of insurance, then there’s a good chance that some leeway will be provided. To harvest this benefit, just ask to talk to your provider nicely.
High Deductible Plan with Health Savings Account
With this approach, you’ll be able to decide on how to use your insurance to cover medical bills. Basically, this lets you use pretax money to pay for any medical bills that aren’t covered by the insurance. Even better, any funds left are carried over for the next year, which means that you’ll always have a steady supply of financial sources in case of emergencies.
Finding an In-House Doctor
Be aware of the doctors included in the insurance coverage of your chosen provider. If you have a favorite doctor, it’s a good idea to ask them first if they participate in any insurance networks, therefore allowing you to narrow down the companies you can deal with. Of course, you can also do this vice versa – giving you the chance to veto each doctor based on their reputation and ease of access. An in-network doctor usually means you don’t have to deal with out-of-network charges.
HMO
Of course, you can always go for an HMO if you’re not fond of working within ‘in house’ doctors. An HMO works like this: they provide a single doctor for all your needs and that same doctor will provide referrals to other doctors, depending on your health concerns. Hence, there’s no such thing as an ‘out of network’ doctor because everything starts from your primary care provider. Compared to a PPO, an HMO is significantly cheaper.
Get Rid of Bad Habits
Smoking is one of the primary factors that can kick your health insurance to the roof. A lot of bad habits can actually make your monthly payments worse, but smokers are universally seen as ticking time bombs. In response, health insurance providers often charge more than 50% to smokers compared to non-smokers.
Premium Tax Credit
Recent developments in the law made it possible for individuals to get premium tax credit for their health insurance. This depends on your income and the size of your household. You might want to check the different premiums set in your state before applying them to your own health insurance plan.
Of course, those are just a few of the concerns you’ll have when saving money on health insurance. Remember to take full advantage of your health insurance such as using free visits and checkups with doctors. When it comes to your health, prevention is better than cure.
