Cutting Insurance Costs: Health Insurance

With healthcare being in a constant flux, it can be hard to imagine a stable outlook for health insurance costs. Even with access to a healthcare plan, there’s never a guarantee that you’re receiving the most affordable care that fits your needs. No matter where the healthcare industry is heading, you can still work to lower your health insurance costs.

Check Medical Bills

Though health insurance can help cover costly medical expenses, there are often errors in billing that make your costs higher than they should be. As the cost of medical care increases, so does the cost of health insurance. While medical billing is a highly automated process, there is still room for human error. It’s in your best interest to review any medical bills to ensure accuracy and to reduce out-of-pocket costs and keep health insurance costs down in general.

Shop Around for Medication

There are many ways to cover your medication needs, and some of them can cost less than your insurance copay. Dedicated websites can help show you the different prices for the same drug within your area, and sometimes even offer coupons. If your medication has an effective generic equivalent, you can always purchase that instead.

Check Your Options at Work

Health insurance plans often mean that your employer shares the cost of premiums with you, which saves you some expenses up front. Depending on your company, you may have many different insurance options available to you, so it’s best to review your workplace options and see what’s available. If you make your premium contributions pretax, you’re not just saving on your health insurance, you’re also looking at savings during tax time.

Understand the Basics of Health Insurance

Health insurance has a lot of different terms flying around, from copay to coinsurance to lifetime maximums. While these terms aren’t too complicated to learn about, not understanding them can lead to poor health insurance decisions. Making sure you understand all the factors in your policy can help you make the decisions that best cover you while cutting out any unnecessary coverage to save you cash.

Ask If Procedures Are Necessary

While it may sound like a pretentious thing to do when seeking medical care, you should learn to ask why certain procedures are necessary to your treatment. Additional tests, newer drugs, and certain therapy sessions may be adding unnecessary costs to your bill. Sometimes doctors aren’t aware of a patient’s desire to keep costs down, assuming that somehow insurance will take care of everything. If you ask, they are usually willing to explain why certain procedures or medications are necessary and if there are less expensive alternatives.

Take Advantage of a Health Savings Account (HSA)

A Health Savings Account lets you contribute money to a savings account that is solely there to cover healthcare costs. The contributions are tax-free, and your savings roll over year to year. Besides giving you funds to apply to medical costs, an HSA can also reduce your premium. In addition, having the money saved up means you can increase your deductible without having to worry about not being able to afford the cost.

Contact Paul with TCG Insurance Solutions for more information or to receive a free quote on your insurance needs.