7 Things To Look Into To Get Your Own Health Insurance
So you’re running your own business, but what do you do for health insurance? The big reason so many people choose not to freelance or start their own business — no one wants to deal with figuring out their own health insurance.
While we are not insurance experts or healthcare professionals, and you should definitely check with a professional before taking our advice, we wanted to give you a starting place to know what questions to ask when trying to figure out your health insurance.
Here are 7 things we recommend looking into if you’re self employed and looking for health coverage:
open enrollment
In the US, you can’t just buy health insurance whenever you want — The window to enroll in or renew health insurances opens every November until the middle of December. If you don’t enroll during that window, or if you make mistakes on your application that you don’t notice until too late, you won’t have health insurance for the rest of the year. My advice is to enroll early in November and then call everyone involved incessantly to make sure everything is all set! There are a few exceptions that allow you to enroll other times of year, like when you turn 26 or if you leave a job where you had insurance.
how to find a plan
Health insurance options vary based on where you live. Look for a Healthcare Marketplace online— a marketplace makes it easier to shop for different plans and start your coverage without as much confusion as going directly through the insurance company (in my experience!). Covered California is a good marketplace to check out for California.
You can also look for a healthcare broker who can help you make these decisions and take care of some of the paperwork for you. If you do use a broker, just stay involved in the process, check in on the progress and ask a lot of questions to make sure you don’t lose your insurance over someone else’s mistake!ppo vs. hmo
You’ll be able to choose from different types of insurance, especially PPO and HMO. Typically HMO has a smaller network (fewer medical places in your area are covered) and offers less coverage for “out of network” than PPO plans, but they’re also usually significantly cheaper than PPO plans. You can search the plan’s provider directory when shopping to see if your preferred doctors/hospitals are in network for that plan.
One big thing to keep in mind here is that many HMO plans have no out-of-pocket max for out of network care, meaning that, for example, if you were in an accident in another country, you could end up paying 100% of your medical bills even if it is millions of dollars.
PPO plans also cover less out of network than in network, but most of them have an out-of-pocket max and still some coverage for out of network… so PPO is usually a safer way to go to guarantee good coverage, but it’s also more expensive.deductible
Every plan has a monthly premium, deductible and out of pocket max. The monthly premium is what you pay every month to keep the coverage. Your deductible is sort of like the first tier limit on how much you’ll pay before insurance helps you out a little more. Out of pocket max is the maximum you’ll ever pay before insurance covers you completely. Every plan is different, but you should be able to look over all the details of each plan before choosing. Typically, the lower the monthly premium, the higher the deductible. You’re basically choosing between paying less monthly but paying more if you have medical expenses, or paying more monthly but paying less if you have medical expenses. Many young people who don’t expect to have medical problems go for a low monthly, high deductible plan.
High deductible plans also sometimes mean you can pay for medical expenses using an HSA account. It’s worth asking about that if you want to save some money on taxes.private options
If you missed the enrollment period for some reason, you can look into private healthcare options. Samaritan Ministries Healthcare is one popular option for private health insurance. It’s similar to insurance in that you pay a monthly premium, but they call it a monthly “gift” because it’s more like a bunch of people pooling their money so that when one person has a need, you can pull from the pool. When you pay the monthly “gift,” you end up literally writing a check to the individual with the need instead of paying the organization. It’s kind of a cool concept and there is no enrollment period for this, so it’s a great option if you don’t have coverage for some reason and can’t get any.
The downsides are:
1. Since it’s not actually real health insurance, you will still have to pay all of your medical bills, send in the receipts to Samaritan Ministries or whatever company you’re using and then they will essentially refund you. If you don’t have large amounts of cash, that could be a challenge if any big bills come up.2. Health insurance companies make deals with medical facilities to get cheaper rates, so if you have insurance, not only will they help cover the expenses but the total expenses even before coverage might be lower than what you would pay without health insurance.
3. Depending on administration and current politics, sometimes you can be penalized on your taxes for not having health insurance, so you could pay for it either way. Look into this and make sure you’re up to date on what the current situation is in this area.
dental
Dental insurance is often an additional insurance, not included in health.
one more note
The cost of your health insurance will go up every year (it is based partially on your age and you become higher risk the older you get), so be prepared for that!