When you are shopping around for group health insurance, you will want to find out how much coverage you need. You can use any health care costs calculator to figure out what your average health-related medical costs may be. You can find many of these calculators online, and they can help you compare those costs with group health insurance plan premiums. You will have to enter ages, health conditions, and your state in order for them to provide you with accurate information. Be sure to include possible medical problems in the future that you will want your group health insurance plan to cover. Unexpected illness or injury can occur to anyone, at any age, in any health condition.
To figure out your health-related medical costs, add up how much you and your family members spend on doctors’ office visits, as well as prescriptions. You will want to compare these costs, with the monthly premiums of your chosen group health insurance plan. Are any family members or you receiving regular care for an ongoing medical condition? Do you require any medical equipment? Include dental and vision costs also, if your group health insurance plan includes these benefits. Don’t forget to include childhood immunizations and flu shots, if necessary.
Consider other medical services that are usually covered by group health insurance plans, such as mental health or substance abuse treatment. If you or your family member suffers an injury, you may require physical therapy services as part of your rehabilitation. This becomes a regular expense since it usually occurs on a weekly basis for a while.
You want to make sure that your group health insurance policy covers hospitalization, and does not have limits on hospital or other expensive services, because you want your coverage to be comprehensive in case of a medical catastrophe. Some group health insurance plans may include only routine care and preventive care, but not include expensive medical services. Of course, there are other group health plans that include hospitalizations and inpatient medical procedures, but exclude preventive care. This is why it is important to look carefully at the inclusions and exclusions of any group health insurance plan in order to be informed.
If you are using an employer-sponsored group health insurance plan, you will not have a lot of choices. Usually, the employer chooses the group health insurance plan, and the employee merely chooses whether to enroll or not. However, sometimes there are some choices as to the specifics of the group health insurance plans, or whether to add riders or not. In Georgia, state employees are able to choose from among two or three different group health insurance plans that are available to them, from different health insurance carriers. So, sometimes there are choices to make, even if your employer chooses the group health insurance plan.
Once you know what your health-related medical costs average out to be, and have an idea of what kind of emergency medical care you want to have covered by your group health insurance plan, you can do some simple math to compare values. Divide up your total possible health related medical costs by twelve months to see what you spend on average on a monthly basis. This number should be higher than your monthly premium for your group health insurance plan.