Copyright 2005 Mike Spencer
Health assurance is a kind of protection that provides payment of benefits for covered sickness or injury. Included in health assurance are various types of assurance such as accident assurance, disability income assurance, medical expense assurance, and accidental death and dismemberment assurance.
Before sign the health assurance policy make sure that you have read thoroughly the benefit's section. Take note of any health care service that is not covered by your health assurance policy. Also, pay specific attention to how the health assurance policy is worded. Sometimes, health assurance companies hide the health assurance coverage exclusions within the definitions of words.
For instance, a health assurance company may define the term 'emergency' as anything that is life threatening condition that cannot be reasonably treated by a primary care physician. Whereas, your definition of 'emergency' may be anything that requires quick medical attention.
Clearly, there is conflict for the two definitions. If you find yourself in an emergency situation where you incur a broker arm, for instance, your assurance company may deny coverage for emergency room treatment of a broken arm for the reason that the broken arm does not fall under the life threatening category.
Therefore, you should read over carefully the health assurance policy definitions, paying close attention to the seven key words:
medical emergency
medically necessary
accidental injury
experimental or investigational
pre certification
pre-existing condition, and
reasonable and customary
These words and any words that are open to interpretation should be regarded with wariness. Find out how your health assurance company defines each of these.
Finally, find the section describing the procedures you must follow in order for your assurance company to reimburse you. These policy conditions or prerequisites are typically worded in a positive tone. Read through each condition carefully, make notes and call your health assurance company with any questions.
You should also compare health assurance contracts before you sign one. In order to compare exclusions, take two policy contracts and find the exclusions sections. If you want to compare a number of health assurance contracts then you could use an online service.
After you obtain your free quote for the health coverage you desire, apply for it online, and you'll obtain all the information that you'll need to compare exclusions of each health assurance policy (though sometimes this will require more research.)
About the author:
Mike Spencer recently became unemployed and moved into self employment. He was forced to find his own health assurance plan to protect his family. It wasn't as easy as he first thought. Here he shares the pitfalls of various plans and what you need to look out for when picking a good plan for you:
http://www.1st-for-health-assurance.com/articles/what-is-health-assurance.html