Health Insurance in California for Individuals and Families
How Can You Select a Health Insurance Plan?
Selecting a health insurance plan isn’t as hard as it looks when you have the right information. The individual and family health care plans are the most common health insurance plans outside the group insurance policies. You can opt to select an insurance plan in the event that;
- High premiums in the existing plan
- No coverage for your family/dependents in the current insurance plan
- You are not covered in your place of work
- You are self employed
Family and Individual Health Plans in California
Family Health Plans:
The rates for family health plans in California may sometimes be determined by the age of the youngest family member/dependent on the plan. Some family insurance plans may save more if there is a big age difference among them. Adding dependents to the plans naturally increases the premium the buyer of the plan has to pay. There are two major plans which are designed for family healthcare coverage and here they are:
Preferred Provider Organizations (PPO) plans:
The Preferred Provider Organizations (PPO) plan is designed to have malleability. This plan allows the family members to have access to a doctor, and can also see other medical practitioners without the doctor referring any members of your family. This plan ensures you save more money only when you visit a facility that is registered as a member in the network of your insurance provider.
Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) plans:
The HMO plan is an insurance policy that allows the members of the family healthcare plan to have access to a medical doctor. If there is an event that any members of the family may need urgent specialist help, the doctor can refer you and your family members to a specialist.
Individual Health Plans:
Individual health plans give the individual the opportunity to select the plan he/she desires. The single plan is meant to be registered for an individual who has a private business, or isn’t registered to a company/group plan. In the case an individual is registered to a personal plan, the insurance company counts it as a waiver and excludes the individual from the group plan. These are the individual health insurance plans in California, and they are also similar to the family health plans but have only one registrant:
Point of Service (POS) Plans:
The POS plan is designed for an individual with the benefit that such an individual will receive better rates when they make use of a hospital or other healthcare providers in the insurance company’s healthcare facility network.
Preferred Provider Organizations (PPO) plans:
This healthcare plan is made to keep the individual within a specific healthcare network using the cost advantage. The preferred provider organization plan involves the insurance company having an existing agreement with a number of healthcare providers. The plan works for you by reducing costs whenever you visit any of these medical facilities. Anytime you make use of another healthcare facility not in an agreement with your health insurance company, the premium becomes significantly higher.
Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) plans:
The HMO plan has a limited number of healthcare providers listed on the plan. For an individual to be covered by the HMO, he/she must use a facility in the list of healthcare centres on the plan. The plan will not provide insurance coverage for the individual if he/she uses any facility other than the ones on the list. This plan may cover the individual outside the listed facilities if emergency help is required.
Conclusion
Health insurance in the state of California for individuals and families has a lot of options to choose from. Apart from the state insurance program, there are a lot of other insurance policy providers that can deliver the best coverage for you and your family.
