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It’s a too common situation: an accident has occurred, forcing a loved one to endure the tensions of a hospital. He is examined and questioned, left burdened then by the weight of medicine and its impending costs. You assure that such costs will be meager, however. Health insurance, after all, is meant to ease the damaging totals. Premiums are offered each month to guarantee success for such a time. The tally will be erased by a company’s arrival; and the focus then can return to healing.
That focus never comes, though.
It is instead replaced to the sudden demands of a bill, the awareness that a doctor’s efforts will not be free (or even cheap). Pieces of those efforts were accepted by your insurance provider. The rest, however, were left completely to you. And the price is far greater than expected.
This scenario is an unfortunate one – it is also, though, one that could be avoided if the notion of deductibles was understood. Too often is this principle ignored, replaced with the unwise faith of trusting a health insurance company to repay all costs. This is simply not the truth.
Deductibles, easily defined, are the portions of any bill that must be paid by an individual. They are expenses that are not covered by a policy; they are instead to be supported by you and must be taken care of before your company can offer the rest of the needed funds.
It is this that causes the most concern for families: even routine conversations with a physician can cause hefty totals. The notion that these totals will not be supported by health insurance makes it seems without worth. The purpose of a policy, however, is to aid with true crises. Common costs will not (and should not) be covered; if only to maintain the health-care system.
This must then be understood to plan appropriately for a tragedy and divide funds as they are needed.
