Every citizen of USA can be proud by their health care system. Here the most talented doctors live – that’s why among last 25 Nobel laureates in the sphere of medicine 18 were from USA.
Most part of new medical drugs was made in USA during the last 2 decades. So, to apply for treatment of the highest quality and cure really serious disease, like cancer, you should come to USA. At the same time Americans very often can’t enjoy the last achievements of medicine. It is explained by the price of medical service. It is especially hard to meet solid medical expenses for people with dependants. Thus if you have two or three children, you should earn enough to provide yourself and all of them for medical service of the highest quality.
The best decision of this problem is to get affordable family health insurance.
Why Do I Need Family Health Insurance?
It is necessary for people, who need to provide themselves and their children for quality medical service for a reasonable cost. When you get one of health insurance family plans, gradually you save some money. When your son or daughter or any other in your family gets ill, this amount is spent for the recovery. Thus when some urgent operation, or unexpected infection, or even sudden attack of chronic disease will take place in your family, you needn’t to get $2,000 from your account or even more to be cured. Just write an application and claim for the coverage.
Family health insurance is the variant of group insurance. Of course, this policy costs more than individual one. At the same time, in comparison with the cost of several individual policies (if you get them for any member of your family) purchasing this group variant will be much cheaper.
To save your funds, you should study health insurance family plans and choose that one, which suits you the best.
The Variations of Family Health Insurance Plans
As many men, as many minds – the famous proverb says. As many families – as many insurance policies – we add. To purchase affordable family health insurance, you need to find a talented insurance agent and tell him honestly, what health condition every member of your family has. Then you need to imagine, what exactly you must cover in your particular situation, taking into consideration the medical needs of every member of your family.
Here’s the basic one from health insurance family plans. According to it, you can insure yourself, your spouse and all the dependants, that you have in your family under 24.
Here are the medical events, when you can apply for the coverage.
- Emergency medical help to any member of your family
- Treatment in case of injury of any kind
- Disability, that has got any member of the family during the insured period
- Sudden death of any member of the family, that took place in the period, determined by your insurance policy
This basic family insurance policy is considered as cheap. But as you see, the coverage is really poor here and is provided only in most urgent cases.
Very often the policyholder includes many other options.
Here are the additional services you can get:
- Treatment of the family member with some chronic disease
- Care about woman in case she gets pregnant
- Care about a baby
- Regular doctor’s examination of every member of the family
Your family plan is unique. Remember, that you struggle for comfort and safety of yourself, your children and your spouse. So take some time to include all special health care that members of your family should have. I understand that often people get lost among the great variety of offers of insurance agents. So we will present you the most popular family health insurance plans.
- Health maintenance organization insurance plan (HMO). This is quite affordable family health care plan. You get the policy and then choose physician (one of the specialists, offered by your insurance company). Then all the members of your family visit him to get general health care recommendations and get basic medical help. If some of insured members of your family needs the consultation of a certain health care specialist (surgeon, pulmonologist, neuropathist) your physician gives a referral. Again, all these specialists are chosen from the network, offered by your insurance company.
- Preferred provider organization insurance plan (PPO). This family insurance plan is more flexible than the previous one. You have an opportunity to visit your favorite doctor you have known since childhood and introduce him to your insurance company. They will cooperate with this specialist as you have chosen him.
- Point of service family insurance plan (POS). This is the combination of both plans. In this case you choose one physician, who will be the first doctor you attend in any case (like in the first plan). At the same time you can choose anyone for this role – even if it is out of network of your insurance company.
These plans suit the needs of any average American family. But they can’t be considered as cheap health insurance for families. What to do if you need to save the funds?
In this case it is necessary to get the basic family insurance plan. At the same time it suits only families with a standard or high level of health. If nobody in your family has some serious chronic illness and all of you have similar health condition, this budget plan is for you.
The other idea to save the funds is to include the members of your family to the employee health care plan. Some employers provide this kind of service in the office. Learn, if it is possible to join your family to the health care policy at your working place. 30%-40% of funds can be saved on your health insurance policy and thus you can enjoy cheap health insurance for families.
For those, who decided to get insurance plan for the whole family, here are the steps.
How to Get Health Insurance for Family of 4
Of course, you can have more or less members in your family, but an average family is a family of four – a couple and their two children. So let’s consider it as an example.
The general health care coverage for this family will be about $16, 000 per year. If at least one member of the family works, the part of this amount can be covered by the employer (to $9,000 actually).
To get the family health care insurance policy for 4 members of your family, you need to provide your insurance agent with the necessary data about every member of your family. Thus you should tell about the health condition and age of all the members of the family.
Usually insurance companies have some demands to the dependant that are insured. Your children must be less than 24, they must not be married and must have full-time occupation (school, college, work)
If you meet all these conditions, you can easily get the policy for a family of 4.
There were the main recommendations for those, who needed to insure the health of all the members of the family and save some extra dollars.
Many a little makes a mickle – here’s the main essence of family plans!