Price is only part of the equation when it comes to selecting health insurance. You also want to make sure you have a consumer-friendly company that makes it easy for you to get the care you need.
Once you've put a price on it, look at how easy or difficult the plan is to use. If there's a list of preferred providers, are your favorite doctors on the list? Which hospitals can you use? How difficult is it to see a specialist or get a second opinion? Would you need a referral? Does the plan cover preventative care, like annual physicals and well-baby visits? Are prescriptions you regularly use covered? Does the plan include any "extras" that you regularly use, like eye care or chiropractic visits?
Pre-existing a must
If you're currently insured, pre-existing conditions have to be covered, says Paul Fronstin, director of the health research and education program for the Employee Benefit Research Institute.If you've gone more than 63 days without coverage, how long would the policy exclude any existing problems? It has to cap the pre-existing condition exclusions at a maximum of one year, says Fronstin.
"Employers will typically not have these exclusions anyway, because they don't make good sense," he says.
Once you've looked at the plan on paper, you want an idea of what it will be like in action. That's where it pays to check out the health-care company itself.
Check them out
Do you know people who are already on the plan? If so, what has been their experience? Go online to see what other consumers are saying about the company and its coverage. Call your state insurance department to see if you can get the complaint ratio or any other information it might have.
To look at the company's financial health, try: Standard and Poor's, A.M. Best Company, Moody's Investors Service and Weiss Ratings.
Quality is the first priority
Whatever you choose, be practical. Look at the quality of care and coverage, not just the bottom-line price. And if a policy doesn't give you enough coverage or you can't meet the deductibles, select something else. To compare insurance policies and quotes, visit Insureme.com, a Bankrate company.While health-care savings accounts, which are combined with a high-deductible or catastrophic policy, are popular because of the cost savings, they're not a good option if you can't meet that deductible, says Bill Vaughan, a senior policy analyst at Consumers Union, the publishers of Consumer Reports magazine. Unfortunately, that knocks out two-thirds of the people who are using them.
"Three million people have a high-deductible insurance policy," says Vaughan. "But only 1 million of them have been able to scrape up enough money to have an HSA."