Health Insurance Deductibles
Help is not coming until you help yourself first…
Your deductible needs to be met before insurance will help cover your costs, but not every plan adds deductible costs up the same way. Some plans have an embedded deductible, while others have an aggregate deductible.
With an embedded deductible, each member of the family needs to meet their individual deductible. With an aggregate deductible, every individual contributes to the family deductible.
Think about deductibles as part of a race to get to the finish line, with the finish line being the point where your health insurance kicks in to help cover costs. An embedded deductible is like a race, where everyone is running for themselves. An aggregate deductible is more like a relay, where everyone on a team is running to the finish line together, with some running longer legs than others.
Many employees opt for a high deductible health insurance plan, because they are looking at the low monthly cost. Unfortunately, many of these same consumers either do not understand what a deductible is, or do not realize the impact of choosing these plans. Years ago, I worked for an advocacy agency in-taking phone calls, and I can’t tell you how many people I spoke to that were upset that they received a high bill.
For example, if someone gets into an unexpected car accident that requires imaging, a high deductible plan will give you the surprise gift of a $1000 bill, potentially. If you have a plan that has a $5000 deductible, you are spending that much money before your plan will help you.
These plans are often chosen by people who feel that they are healthy and never go to the doctor. As long as your next year goes as planned, then maybe that plan is worth is and you save money.
Another issue that sometimes people overlook is that these high deductible plans come with an FSA or HSA for a reason. It is literally a savings account to pull from for unplanned medical expenses.
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