Shopping Around For Treatment Prices

By Author: Norris Rios
Total Articles: 568
Comment this article

When you come on to a site like this, the standard advice you receive is all based on the idea of shopping around to find the best value deal. Except, once you have found a policy, almost all the sites then stop giving this advice. Perhaps in the good old days of freely available credit, no-one needed to worry too much if there were unexpected expenses. Everything could just be charged or, if it was a big amount, there were plans to realize part of the positive housing equity. Money was never really a problem. Fast forward to the current recession. Economists and optimists would have us believe we are on the path to recovery. But no-one seems to have told the banks or credit card companies. It's still like getting blood from a stone to extend an overdraft or increase a credit limit. With the majority of properties in negative housing equity, there's no reserve cache of gold to dig you out of trouble. That means watching where every cent goes.

So why should you need to worry about your health plan? It's just sitting there waiting to pay for your medical treatment. Why watch the cents? Well, let's start with the deductible. ...
... Have you read the small print? Does your plan treat every claim as subject to the deductible or do you pay as you go until the deductible is used up and then the insurer pays for the rest. For example, you may have five visits to see your primary care physician in a year. If each costs $250, do you pay that amount for every visit or, if you have a deductible of $1,000, do you pay for the first four visits and the insurer pays for the fifth? Either way, you have a positive incentive to find a doctor who will only charge you $175 per visit. Some 30 US states now mandate hospitals to publish their prices for all major surgeries and procedures. This is intended to help the uninsured, but the information is equally important to the insured. Except that the hospitals tend to publish only the top-of-the-range prices and resist attempts to bargain them down. More independent physicians and clinics publish more realistic price lists. Responsible insurance companies will help their policy holders to find the cheapest treatment. Shopping around saves you (and your insurance company) money.

A further factor to beware is the so-called facilities charge. Many doctors who are employed by a hospital or clinic add a charge for the use of their employer's facility. This often comes unexpectedly. Worse, many health plans do not cover it. So when you get your multiple health insurance quotes and are deciding to decide which policy to buy, check how the deductibles work and whether the plan will cover the facilities charge. Do not assume that these health insurance quotes will give you the information at first glance. It will require study and, if necessary, a telephone call to the insurer to get a full understanding of the risks. Buy the policy wisely and then, if you do fall ill, use the online search engines to find local doctors, clinics and hospitals offering the most economical services. Shopping around really does save you from high outgoings and unexpected charges.