Health Insurance Articles
Determining If A Managed Care Health Insurance Plan Is Right For Your Family
2010-01-17
Deciding if a managed care health insurance plan is the right choice for your family can be rather challenging, especially if you are not aware of the basics of this type of health care coverage. Managed care is a more structured type of health insurance coverage than some other plans, but the stricter guidelines usually translate into much lower costs. Managed care plans are typically less expensive than the fee for service type plans, but they do offer less flexibility. Here are a couple of ways to determine if this could be the best health care insurance choice for your family.
You should gather your medical records for the last year, and note how many different doctors and specialists that your family saw. Also make note of your total out-of-pocket expenses for your health insurance deductibles, or for non-covered doctor visits and procedures. Did you meet your deductible and then use the insurance heavily, or were your expenses mainly out-of-pocket since you never met your deductible? You should see a pattern emerge in terms of how often your family tends to visit the doctor and how much you are generally spending. If your family visits the doctor only for rare illness, for wellness checkups, and for regular visits with your child's pediatrician, you may find this type of health care coverage a good option. Since a managed care plan will generally charge you a small co-pay with each doctor visit, rather than requiring you to meet a deductible, you may find this to be major savings.
An important factor is your feelings about your current doctors. If you feel very strongly about going to the same doctor that you have always been with and don't want to consider changing, you may not find managed care ideal. With a managed care plan you will need to use a doctor in a predetermined network of physicians. While most plans have a very wide range of doctors to choose from, your personal physician may not be in the managed care network you sign up for. If not, you would need to be willing to establish yourself and your family with doctors who are part of the network. This is also true for specialists. If your doctor were to order special tests, your family members would have to see a specialist in the network.
Nearly all of your health care needs will be managed by one doctor, your primary care physician. If your family is generally in good health, fairly flexible in their choice of physicians, and wants to keep health care coverage costs as low as possible, a managed care health insurance plan may be the right health care coverage for your family.
