Medical insurance coverage typically falls into one of two camps - indemnity plans or managed care plans. Indemnity plans allow the most freedom since you can pick your doctors and medical facilities. These types of medical insurance plans will reimburse your expenses in full, in part or up to a specific amount. You may be more familiar with managed care plans because this is often the type of medical insurance plan offered through employers as part of the employee benefit package. Included are HMOs (Health Maintenance Organization), PPOs (Preferred Provider Organization) and POS (Point-Of-Service) plans. These types of medical insurance plans are more restrictive in that you often have to go to a selected primary care physician, get referrals to specialists from the primary care physician or pay higher costs for out-of-network medical service providers.
What types of things should be covered in your medical insurance when you look at the quotes? Hospital room and board, surgical expenses including surgeon's fees, physician expenses for doctor visits, major medical coverage with a high maximum benefit that will pay your medical expenses in the event of a catastrophic even such as a bad car accident.
Additional benefits that you may want to make sure those medical insurance quotes include are vision, dental, mental health, prescription drugs, maternity expenses and preventive care such as annual wellness exams or Pap smears for women. The cost of all these types of medical needs is rising, so having insurance to cover them is a good idea.
The cost of medical insurance isn't as clear-cut as a monthly payment. Sure, there's that premium to be paid, but you also need to examine quotes to find out what is required of you as far as co-payments (the amount you pay for medical office visits), deductibles (what you have to pay out of pocket each year before your insurance begins to pay claims) and coinsurance (the percentage of your medical care costs you have to pay yourself after your deductible is met) are concerned.
Medical insurance quotes are easy to come by in California. Be sure you know what you're looking for when you receive them.