Hi everyone I’ve been trying to get private medical insurance for my son, also covering mental health. Every company so far has refused, If mental health is bought on from autism then it won’t be covered. Surly this can’t be right ? Any help greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Okay, before you abandon the healthcare exchange to buy private insurance direct from the insurance companies, make sure you're using your adjust gross income when inputing your income. This should be line 37 on your 1040. If your income is still too high, consider contributing more to any tax advantaged retirement accounts like solo 401K, IRA or HSA if you enroll in a compatible high deductible health plan.
If you still can't qualify for subsidies, then consider shopping direct with the health insurance companies. You really don't need a broker, though you can use one, since the ACA prevents insurers from disqualifying you for pre-existing conditions. So to find a health provider, you can shop direct via the health insurance company's website. If you don't know who to use, see whom your last physician uses or find a primary care physician and compare prices between the different insurance they provided.
If you want to help reduce costs, consider a HSA compatible high deductible health plan. All ACA plans require a free yearly physical and preventative care like flu shots. So if you see your doctor an extra 2x a year on top of that, you will have to pay the fee out of pocket, though you pay at the negotiated rate your insurance company has with the provider.
So for example, I saw my primary care doctor beyond my yearly physical and it cost me $125. However, the non-insured rate my doctor charged was $220ish.
The usual trade offs with HSAs are there are no co-pays and you have to pay everything out of pocket until you reach your plans deductible. After that the insurance co-pay kicks in until you reach your yearly max.
The pros though are that you usually have lower premiums and you can save on your taxes by contributing to a HSA. If you have a single plan, in 2019 you can contribute up to $3500. So that would be a tax savings of anywhere from $525 to $770 if you max your HSA, plus whatever gains you may make in the market.
Exactly. I find the same with life insurance. I think I've become uninsurable due to long term health conditions. So all I do is try to maintain a fund to buy myself out of situations, or help my family should the need arise. Not ideal. :(
As an extensive user of both the NHS and private medical health, I'd agree, up to a point.
You often see the same people, just in different venues.
But you get more attention in private care because people aren’t so overworked … and you avoid the worst of NHS under-investment.
When you say something to a nurse or doctor, the information is received, registered, and acted upon; in the NHS you can never be sure of that and constantly have to check that they are fully aware (and frequently they aren’t; not because the informtion isn't there, but because my medical records are extensive, and they haven't had time to read everything)..
I have no spleen and other factors which damaged my immune system permanently and even though this is (obviously) on my records, NHS staff are frequently unaware of it, and twice in my life major clinical decisions have been made as a result which endangered my life.
Private medical staff noticeably have the time to properly review your records, check things with you, ask clarifying questions, and listen.
I was once 999-d into an NHS hospital which was in dire straits.
Examples of what happened, there:
My wife got upset about all this and arranged a transfer to a private hospital, where I got a full medical on arrival, involving several staff, and tests with near-immediate results. They discovered a potentially dangerous infection which had been entirely undetected (I was prescribed antibiotics immediately and began taking them that night).
I didn’t arrive until about 11.30pm, but was hungry, because I hadn’t been eating, and was able to order from a menu, and have good, freshly cooked, vegetarian food shortly afterwards.
I don’t blame the NHS staff for any of this (far from it) and have had better experiences but because the NHS is so woefully under resourced, you have to fight for yourself and your loved ones. May God help those who can’t, or don’t have people to champion them.
It's a business. People sometimes think that because it affects health, the business parameters won't be so rigidly applied. They will.
I had private health insurance all my life until 2012 (and used it extensively) but eventually the list of exclusions became so big it was rendered pointless; any problem I was ever likely to have was excluded, and I'd be paying a premium so large some people thought I was exaggerating, in order to cover eventualities which were extremely unlikely.
I didn't see that as a good investment.
In the years since I have paid cash for some health issues, and that is a lot cheaper than the premiums I'd have paid (though those things wouldn't have been covered anyway).
Health insurance is a) a bet, and b) a business. Insurers are essentially bookies. Despite all the glossy ads and the effort made to persuade you of their caring nature they have no interest in your welfare.
It's good to have for healthy people, as a rule. If you are unhealthy, it is prohibitively expensive or (as you've found) not available at all.
It really depends what you want covered. I work in the NHS so that will bias my perception of it.
The NHS is really good at emergency care. Break your hip. Have a heart attack. Have your bowel twist on itself and block. Get cancer. All things which the NHS can and will do well.
But almost any physical health problem which isn’t immediately life threatening and many mental health problems will probably be dealt with quicker by private health care.
I’d say the care isn’t objectively better, just quicker and you’ll sit on comfier seats.
I’ll take a look later as I’m not happy with my provider either.
It’s more of an issue that insurers prefer to pay single big lumps of money than regular small payments.
Because of this the insurers won’t cover chronic condition so it’s not just mental health.
Then there are different ways that they exclude previous conditions to look at so if you had something in the last 5 years it might not be covered until you are 5 years clear.
The insurance companies do want to pay out as much as possible to justify the premiums just in predictable big lumps without committing cash flow over any period of time.
yeah insurance companies dont wanna pay out, so in health insurance they are all too happy to give a perfectly healthy person health insurance and take your money for it because your fine and not gonna come to harm so they wont need to pay out.. and thus its just you giving them money.... but if you say you have some sort of mental issue or cancer, or something, then nope, they wont let you have health insurance because they think your only going for it because you will die and they will have to pay out. and they dont want to pay out, they just want to take your money for free.... thats how they make money lol insurance is a scam.
