Sure cheap hospitalization rates open ears, but major medical coverage policy benefits open eyes. No real comparison exists between cheap hospital insurance and comprehensive major medical except the rates. This is not a true policy benefits comparison. See how to rate the difference of hospitalization benefits paid when coverage is used. Since major claims are never cheap, unpaid medical bills, including outside hospital services can be a financial killer.
Listen to the television advertisement on how you can have cheap hospitalization rates of $6.00 a day, meaning only $180.00 monthly for a hospital policy. How can you beat the rates of as low as $10.00 daily for family benefits? That calculates to around $300.00 monthly. My wife pays $800.00 for her comprehensive major medical coverage with a small co-pay for prescriptions. You can see that something is wrong here. That is because you are looking at two rate pictures where the benefits comparison is in no way equal. Compare the major medical coverage as a whole apple, with the hospitalization policy as a smaller apple with a big chunk bit out.
Cheap Hospitalization Rates
First, remember that a hospitalization coverage policy means only providing some benefits for expenses that incur during a hospital stay. It is rare that outside services like seeing specialists, regular physician care, rehabilitation, and examinations like an MRI are covered. An MRI detailed scan providing x-ray views can easily cost over $1,000 alone. Other drawbacks are that benefits are set on few schedules. This means either there is no payable benefit; there is a limit for the service, or a 20% or higher co-pay for surgery and other items.
As an agent for a major insurance company specializing in medical coverage, they did not even offer a comprehensive major medical plan. So beware of the difference. Rates are based on adding up a number of benefit riders, similar to starting to build a plan after the base is established. The options that factored in the final rate were numerous. They included a maternity option, the daily room rate payable for a semi-private room, the co-payment for surgery, outpatient coverage in a matter of life and death situation, and a choice to cover outpatient surgery. If a cheap hospitalization policy was properly constructed, the rate was near the cost of major medical coverage, and it did not cover any benefits outside the hospital.
No one should ever buy hospital coverage as a gap supplemental insurance if you already have major medical, as you are only overlapping benefits. You could consider buying it as supplemental coverage if you cannot afford the cost of the higher quality comprehensive plan. However, hospital medical plans usually have a maximum cap for the total benefits that are paid for a single medical situation or over a lifetime.
Major Medical Coverage
This is medical insurance for inside and outside the hospital with very little exclusion. Some plans require that you pick from an approved list of doctors, or the insurer may insist approving your doctor's request to see a specialist before expenses are covered. There is a unique feature called catastrophic. This means the policy may have a maximum lifetime payout of $2,000,000 or higher. The purpose of accident and illness insurance is to avoid exposure to a financial risk you could never pay back.
There is another choice to hospitalization insurance, which you should check out if you do not want to pay bills the rest of your lifetime. That is where you receive all the normal comprehensive benefits of major medical after you decide on a deductible of $2,000 to $10,000. Yes, you would be responsible for the initial amount of satisfying the deductible. After that, all your benefits kick in. The price is extremely reasonable.
Under this alternative, you could have $85,000 in total charges in and out of the hospital plus rehabilitation. With the $5,000, deductible you are not ruined for life. Most hospitals would take a $100 monthly payment plan, so in 50 or so months the debt would be paid off. Under the cheap hospitalization plan with higher rates, you would be stuck with huge unpaid costs. Giving you a fair estimate on this $85,000 bill, the amount unpaid would certainly exceed $25,000.
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