What are the Health Insurance plans in California?

First of all, there are a lot of kinds of health insurance plans available in California. Choosing the right plan for you is a very personal choice and must be handled with utmost care and importance. The difficulty on deciding what kind of plan to acquire involves sufficient amount of awareness and knowledge about the subject.

The California Health Insurance plan can be a bit expensive for other people. But some companies actually offer reasonable premiums and supportive benefits. The only problem with this is finding the perfect plan that is suitable for your current needs and situation. With the wide range of Insurance companies in California it will be a hard and complicated task to achieve.

When purchasing Health Insurance plans we should always keep in mind our financial boundaries. Knowing the cost of Insurance plans will be the first step on acquiring basic information for our budget capability. We should also familiarize ourselves with the types of plans available in the market. Here is some basic knowledge useful about the types of health insurance plans:

  • Traditional Health Insurance: This plan is also known as the indemnity service health insurance. It’s has been around long before HMO’s and PPO’s were available. And has also been the dominant standard in health insurance in the past. The plan is simple, you pay a certain amount of premium or deductible for the medical services and the insurance company will settle all the remaining bills.
  • Fee-for-service: This plan is very flexible. You can go to any hospital, doctor, or health care provider for their services without the consent of the insurance company. However, the disadvantage is that you have to pay a high premium first before getting the assistance from the health insurer. Also the company can only pay a reasonable amount of medical expenses the rest is up to you.
  • Managed Care: Managed care is used for lowering the cost of medical expenses. This kind of plan has a variety of methods and techniques in providing health care services.
  • PPO or Preferred Provider Organization: This kind of plan has a network of health care providers that you can avail. Getting the services inside the network can lower the cost of the service of the provider. You can also get assistance outside the network but you will have to pay a higher deductable for their services.
  • EPO or Exclusive Provider Organization: Unlike PPO’s, EPO’s requires you to use the services inside their network. If you choose to render the services of other providers outside their network you would most likely be responsible in paying the entire cost of the bill.
  • POS or Point-of-Service: This plan is similar to PPO’s but they require you to get permission from their primary care physicians before you can go outside their network.
  • HMO or Health Maintenance Organization: This plan is the most affordable of all. It is more often used in groups rather than individually. The disadvantage with this plan is that it offers the lowest flexibility in services. You are only required to use the network of their health care providers. And also you need to get permission from the primary care physician before you can visit a specialist.

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