Kevin Knauss: Health, History, Travel, Insurance
Posts related to health insurance for individuals, families, small groups, enrollment, eligibility in California, plans, coverage, benefits.
But as you can see, there are far more services with a specified copayment or coinsurance percentage, not subject to the deductible, than health care services subject to the medical deductible. It’s possible to meet your maximum out-of-pocket amount without ever meeting the medical deductible.
In the spirit of Covered California and an open market place, agents should be offering information on all health plans available to the individual or family in their region. If a marketing program is designed to restrict consumer information or attempts to steer consumers into a specific health plan, the loser is the consumer. This sort of devious marketing arrangement is made even more egregious when the bait to entice a consumer is a government funded subsidy.
The underwriting holiday only excludes the Statement of Health questionnaire, other conditions may prohibit enrollment. For example, Mary, may have cancelled her Medicare Advantage plan during the Medicare Open Enrollment. Mary suffers from rheumatoid arthritis. With the underwriting holiday, she does not have to answer the Statement of Health questions, one of which is if she has rheumatoid arthritis.
What all the deductibles, coinsurance, and copayments have in common is that they all accumulate toward meeting the plan maximum out-of-pocket amount (MOOP). When you reach your MOOP, then all the services and prescription drugs are covered 100% by the health plan. But it can seem like forever to reach your MOOP when you are going through lots of tests, procedures, and swallowing drugs like candy on Halloween.
Sutter Health Plus is expanding its service area to include 15 new ZIP codes in Santa Clara County effective Jan. 1, 2020. access to care for members in the South Bay who live or work in Santa Clara County, primarily around San Jose
I share Covered California’s concern that health care sharing ministry programs are a mine field waiting for someone running from ridiculously high health insurance premiums to step on and have the bomb explode. However, I disagree with Covered California’s proposed use of certified agents to be their foil to limit the enrollment in these products. Agents are not the jailers charged with keeping the citizens within the health insurance pool.
If you want to keep either UCLA or Hoag in your Oscar health plan, you will have to enroll in an off-exchange Oscar plan that is designated with the Circle network. The Circle network that includes UCLA and Hoag will only be available in the metal tier plans of Bronze and Silver.
Sutter Health Plus has added a schedule of estimated costs for many routine health care services similar to the Kaiser Permanente fee schedule. They have also released their individual and family health plans that are available in parts of the Bay Area and Sacramento region. For individuals and families with High Deductible Health Plans, it […]
Kaiser is unique in that because they manage their own pharmacies, we can get a look at the ordering habits of opioids, and by extension, the prescribing of those opioids by Kaiser doctors. With a pharmacy like Costco, that has a higher ordering rate for higher strength doses of hydrocodone, it is hard to pinpoint which doctors or medical groups are prescribing the stronger drugs. It may not even be a doctor in Sacramento County.
If you take a nasty spill on your skate board in San Francisco, and have to have your ankle X-rayed at Kaiser, it will cost $102. But if you break your finger poking your political opponent in the chest, that finger X-ray will cost $111. These costs are lower in Southern California where they have more skate boards and finger poking. An ankle X-ray in Southern California will be $71 and the finger at $78. They don’t mention if there is a discount X-ray cost for both if you poked someone and then fell off your skate board.
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Kevin Knauss, Education Before Enrollment, Health Insurance Bridge
Visit the IMK File Explorer page to find the latest documents from a variety of health plans for individuals, families, and small groups.
