Gainesville Health Insurance

Health Insurance is a form of insurance that pays medical costs for yourself, your spouse and your dependents. Lack of health insurance or inadequate health insurance can greatly affect your family's quality of life. The cost of acquiring the care of medical professionals on your own in the event of an illness or injury, far outweighs the cost of insurance premiums. If you are looking for Gainesville health insurance, don't wait another day.

Health Insurance Terms

Some of the most common terms you will need to know as you search for insurance are deductible, co-pay and payment schedule.

A deductible means that you are financially responsible for a certain amount of the bill up front. Once you have spent up to the agreed upon amount the insurance company will pay for the rest of the medical bills. Sometimes there are different deductibles for different services. For example, the insured may have a five hundred dollar prescription deductible and, under the same policy, have a five thousand dollar hospitalization deductible.

A co-pay is a certain amount of the bill that the insured must pay once the deductible is met. For example, a policy may require a twenty dollar co-pay for doctor visits. Under some policies, the co-pay is a set percentage of the total bill.

A payment schedule is a list of all the procedures that are covered under the policy. If a procedure is not listed, it is not covered under the policy. Generally, the insurance company has negotiated a reduced fee for the procedures listed on the payment schedule.

Another important detail of the policy that you need to be aware of is the policy cap. Most Gainesville health insurance policies will have an annual cap. That cap is sometimes as low as five or six thousand dollars. That wouldn't cover very much if the insured suffered a major injury or illness. It is important to be aware of the annual cap on your insurance policy. Most Gainesville health insurance policies will also have a life time cap. These are generally much larger, ranging into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Lifetime caps are there to limit the insurance company's liability. Although you need to be aware of it, the likelihood that you would ever exceed it is small and would only happen in the event of an extremely catastrophic event that left you with expensive long-term care costs.