Thrifty Thinking: Open Enrollment for Health Insurance

“I participated in a campaign on behalf of Mom Central Consulting (#MC) for Aflac. I received a promotional item as a thank you for participating.”

Did you know that nearly three-quarters of workers don't feel like they understand their insurance coverage, and over one-third feel like it will be even harder to understand coverage with upcoming changes due to the Affordable Care Act? That's a sad stat, and one that really surprised me when I reviewed the results of a recent survey by Aflac.

To help make things easier on employees, whether or not they use Aflac, they've put together a handy set of Open Enrollment Resources, along with some tips for employees:

• Prepare ahead of time: Be aware of annual insurance policy changes and compare your new benefits package to your policy from the year before. Do your homework to ensure you choose the right policy that fits your needs and make sure that all of the health insurance costs you’re responsible for are within your budget. Also, review the deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs for health care services and pharmacy purchases you’ll be responsible for paying to ensure your plan offers the coverage you need.
• Don’t make assumptions: Keep in mind that if your company hasn’t made any material changes to its health insurance plan since health care reform legislation was passed in 2010, it may be exempt for now from offering widely discussed essential health benefits, including free preventive services. Ask your HR manager if your policy options changed to include new benefits made available by health care reform.
• Check your spouse’s benefits package: Your employer doesn’t have to offer insurance to your spouse and as costs increase, more companies are cutting this option. Even if your employer does offer your spouse insurance, the company is not obligated to pay anything toward the premium. If your spouse has access to employer-sponsored health insurance through his or her job, it may make the most financial sense to purchase two individual policies as opposed to one family policy.
• Don’t double up: Health care reform legislation requires plans in the individual and small group markets to offer essential health benefits like pediatric vision and dental and, chronic disease management services. Check all aspects of your major medical plan so you know what is covered and what isn’t.
• Examine premium costs carefully: Cheaper isn’t always better, since plans with the lowest monthly premiums likely mean you’ll pay more in co-insurance and receive less coverage.
• Consider supplemental insurance such as accident, hospital or critical illness plans to help reduce rising health care expenses.

My husband and I still don't know what our insurance coverage will look like as changes roll out. Right now we self-purchase insurance directly from an insurance company for our whole family and are reimbursed by our employers, but that may change, we'll have to see how things play out!