Comparing Health Plans: What to look for? Where to start?

Comparing Health Plans:

What to look for? Where to start?

So you’ve gone through the Marketplace, filled in all your information, and received your results… are there are a lot of them!

Catastrophic plans, gold, silver, bronze, oh my!

With so many options and so little concrete, laymen’s information, it can be really hard to compare plans. In this series I’ll discuss some different types of health insurance plans that you can access through the Marketplace, their details, and their merits.

 

Comparing providers, such as Avera and Sanford

One method you could use in order to compare and contrast various plans, is to start by comparing providers such as Avera and Sanford health plans, which are you primary options in a market like Sioux Falls’.

 

In fact, comparing Avera and Sanford regarding their health plan options was the original inspiration for this article. However, when I researched it further, I realized that choosing between these two institutions depends on more personal factors than a simple blog post can adequately address.

 

Basically, if you’re trying to choose between providers such as Avera and Sanford, you have to take into account things like the following: What are their respective specialties? Who is your current physician and would you like to continue seeing them? Is there something about a particular location you prefer? What about the different hospitals’ mission statements? Maybe you have an ethical motivation?

 

The point is, that I don’t think my post can adequately help you determine whom to insurance yourself through. (But I guarantee that Carlos at CRC Capital Group, Inc. knows a bunch more than I do!)

 

What I can help you with is comparing types of plans: catastrophic, bronze, silver, and gold.

 

Comparing plans

Obviously, the first thing to do when deciding what type of health insurance plan to purchase, is figuring out exactly what you require from your health insurance and also what you can afford.

 

There are several ways to compare these different types of plans. The most obvious, and probably the most compelling, method would be to compare the cost of various plans. Another method, and probably more meaningful (if you’re relatively financially free), would be to compare the various offerings of each unique plan.

 

I know this was quite brief, but I didn’t want to start a discussion I couldn’t finish in one post! So stay tuned for my next post!

In the next installment of this series I’ll go into depth comparing examples of different plans, as taken from a local Marketplace website.