Cheap Medical Insurance Companies Online In Alabama

If you are looking for cheap medical insurance companies here in Alabama there's really only one place for you to look, and that's online. Online sellers of insurance have almost no overhead and so they can pass truly remarkable savings along to you. The super good news is that there are simple ways for you to save even MORE!

One thing you can do is to pay your monthly premium automatically each month out of your savings or checking account. If your insurance company doesn't have to send you a costly bill every month they can afford to reduce the cost of your medical insurance.

If you don't see your doctor often then it can really pay for you to increase your co-payment from 25% to 50%.

Likewise, you can save money on your medical insurance instantly if you increase your deductible. Just be careful that you don't increase your deductible past the point at which you can afford to pay it.

And speaking of high deductibles, one of the newest forms of cheap medical insurance is called a Health Savings Account, or an HSA. This is a special savings account that you fill with cheap tax-free dollars. You use those tax-free dollars to pay for all of your medical costs.

You also use those tax-free dollars to pay for a cheap super-high-deductible medical insurance policy. This cheap policy will have a deductible so high that in a typical year it won't pay even a penny toward any of your medical bills - that's what you use the tax-free savings account for.

Where these policies come in handy is if you should suffer a catastrophic illness or accident that runs up medical bills into the tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars - something that can happen in the blink of an eye.

Without one of these cheap medical policies you would be forced to wipe out your life savings, you might have to sell your home and you might even be driven into bankruptcy.

So check out all of your alternatives - but when it comes time to buy your medical insurance you really NEED to buy it online. You'll save even more money when you buy your insurance online if you take the time to review prices from a number of medical insurance price comparison websites and not rely on the results from just one site.

So happy hunting - and remember, if you take the time to look carefully online you really and truly CAN fine health insurance at prices you probably never dreamed possible.

Cheap High Risk Medical Insurance in Arizona

The high cost of medical insurance here in Arizona is driving thousands of individuals and families to scramble frantically for cheap high risk medical insurance. If you are among those frantically searching for it that you can afford there is some good news. There are there specific actions you can take to reduce the cost of your traditional medical insurance, often by 25% or even more!

Let's start with some simple steps you can take. Paying your premium automatically from your savings or checking account every month saves the insurance company the cost of sending you a bill and they are happy to pass a good portion of that savings on to you.

You can also save a lot (and feel better) if you eat right and get some exercise. If you're really serious about saving money on it then get serious about dropping fast food restaurants and getting some exercise. You know that eating high calorie, high fat hamburgers and French fries isn't good for you. You know that they contribute to weight problems, high blood pressure, diabetes and a whole host of other ills. So stop eating at places like that. The healthier you are the less you're going to need medical care and the less you are going to pay for your health insurance.

And get a little exercise. Just walking around the block a few times each week, or riding a bike to do a few errands, or joining a group that walks around the mall in the mornings... ANYTHING that will get you on your feet and moving will be a help.

If you don't see your doctor often why not increase your co-payment from 25% to 50%? Doing that will save you quite a bit on the cost of your health insurance premium.

Similarly, if you can afford to increase your yearly deductible you can save a lot on the monthly cost of your health insurance.

And one of the surest ways of saving money and finding the cheapest health insurance is to buy your insurance online. It's true. Online sellers have a huge advantage over their brick and mortar cousins because they have almost no overhead and so they are able to pass tremendous savings on to you. In fact, you can sometimes save as much as 25% simply by buying it online.

Affordable High Risk Medical Insurance Online In Alabama

If you want to find affordable high risk medical insurance here in Alabama you really only have one choice: you need to look online. Online health insurance sellers have almost no overhead and so they are able to pass that rather substantial savings directly to you. However, if you really want to save as much money as possible there are a few simple things you can do that will save you even MORE.

One of the simplest things you can do is to pay your monthly premium automatically each month out of your savings or checking account. This saves the insurance company the cost of sending you an expensive bill every month - and so they pass along the savings along to you.

Don't participate in dangerous or extreme sports or hobbies. If you are going to go out of your way to put your health at risk you certainly can't expect an insurance company to offer you cheap health insurance.

Likewise, if you smoke or use chew you can't think in your wildest dreams that you are ever going to get affordable health insurance. If you want affordable health insurance one cost you are going to have to pay is to quit smoking or using chew.

For many people the most affordable high risk medical insurance is one of the relatively new Health Savings Accounts - also known as an HSA account. These are special savings accounts which you fund with cheap tax-free dollars. You can only use these accounts to pay for medical expenses.

Any tax-free money left in your account at the end of the year can be rolled over into the next year, allowing you to potentially build up a rather nice tax-free nest egg over time.

These accounts come with a very low-cost and super-high-deductible health insurance policy. These policies have such a high deductible that they almost never pay for any of your medical needs in a normal year - that's what the tax-free savings account is for. What these low-cost policies do is they protect your life savings and they protect you from the possibility of being forced to sell your home in the event that you suffer some sort of cataclysmic event, such as a serious illness or a catastrophic accident that runs up medical bills in the tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars overnight.

But whether you decide on an HSA account or you decide to go with a more traditional health insurance policy, one thing remains constant - you are going to get the very lowest rates if you buy your health insurance online.

Don't rely on the results you get from just one of the many health insurance price comparison websites out there. Each site only shows you the prices from a small handful of insurance companies. If you want to see the widest range of available prices open to you then you'll have to run your price comparisons on at least 3 different sites.

As soon as you've done that, however, then your job is virtually done. All that's left is for you to choose the most affordable high risk medical insurance you've found - and know that you are now saving as much money every single month as you possibly can!

Cheap High Risk Medical Insurance Online In Alabama

For most people medical insurance here in Alabama seems extremely expensive. In fact, medical insurance is now so expensive that fully 16% of all Alabama residents can't afford any medical coverage at all. The good news is there are several simple things you can do that will make YOUR cost of health insurance much more affordable.

One thing you can do is to pay your monthly premium automatically from your checking or savings account. If your insurance company doesn't have to send you an expensive bill every month they are going to pass that savings along to you.

Don't smoke or use chew - or any other tobacco product for that matter. It should come as no surprise this late in the game that if you smoke or use chew you'll never qualify for the cheapest high risk medical insurance available. If you're serious about saving money on your medical insurance then you're going to have to be equally as serious when it comes to quitting all tobacco products.

If you don't see a doctor on a regular basis then it will probably pay off handsomely for you if you increase your co-payment from 25% to 50%.

Increasing your deductible to the highest level you can afford to pay each year will also decrease your monthly cost of health insurance. Obviously care must be taken that you don't agree to pay a higher deductible than you can actually afford.

If you're after the absolutely cheapest high risk health insurance you may want to consider a Health Savings Account, or HSA. This is a special savings account that you can only use to pay for your medical expenses using non-taxed dollars, which saves you at least 25% off the cost of your medical care.

These accounts come with a very low-cost super-high-deductible health insurance policy. These policies have deductibles of at least $1,200 to $2,400 so these policies are not going to pay for any of your health care needs during a typical year. These policies are only used if you should suffer some sort of catastrophic accident or major illness that costs you tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills. Then your low-cost high-deductible policy will save your life savings and even save you from being forced to sell your home.

You can also save a lot of money on your health insurance if you buy it online. Online health insurance sellers have virtually no overhead and so they are able to pass tremendous savings along to you.
In order to get the very best price possible online you'll need to see as many comparison health insurance prices as possible from as many different insurance companies as possible. The way you do that is you must make your price comparisons on several different sites and not rely on the results from just one site.

But do check out the prices online because that is where you are always going to find your best deals.

How to Get Cheap High Deductible Major Medical Insurance

A high deductible major medical insurance plan is a relatively new kind of plan that can save you money every month on your premium. If you're in the market for health care coverage, you should investigate whether a high deductible major medical plan is right for you.

What is high deductible major medical insurance?

These are plans that offer low-cost coverage for serious injuries or illnesses. With these plans you select the level of deductible you want, usually ranging from $500 to $10,000. You pay all your medical expenses until you reach the deductible. After that, your insurer pays your medical expenses, often up to 100%.

These plans are often coupled with a medical savings account, in which you regularly deposit funds to help cover your medical expenses until you meet your deductible.

Why choose a high deductible major medical plan?

The major reason for choosing this plan is that it can save you money on your monthly premiums. In fact, your monthly premiums can be half of what you would pay for a traditional health care plans.

If you do choose one of these plans, you need to be sure that you can afford to pay the full deductible should you have an accident or serious illness.

To Par or Not to Par - Medical Billing Dilemma in Anticipation of Proposed Medicare Cuts

As the year-end approaches, the providers again face the participation-non-participation dilemma because status change notifications are accepted until January 1 only. The doctor must choose between higher reimbursements and patient collections or lower reimbursement and direct deposit. The choice is complicated because the Congress has not yet completed the debates about an upcoming 10.1% Medicare cut to physicians. The Congress delay and the unprecedented cut size dramatize the possibility of being locked for another year under a newly reduced fee schedule and raise the urgency and importance of this decision.

"Unless Congress takes immediate action ... Medicare will begin across-the-board cuts on January 1," said AMA President Ron Davis, MD. "Congressional action is not guaranteed, so physicians interested in changing their Medicare participation status for 2008 should review the information now, fill out the forms and prepare to mail them prior to December 31," (http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2007/12/24/gvl11224.htm).

The physician has three options about participating in Medicare, namely, participation (PAR), non-participation (non-PAR), and private contracting:

1. Participation: The physician participating in Medicare (PAR) agrees to standard--and possibly reduced in 2008--Medicare fees for every submitted claim. The participating doctor gives up the right to "balance-bill" patients for the difference between the standard Medicare fee and doctor's "reasonable and customary" fee. But payment timing predictability and the convenience of direct deposit using electronic file transfer (EFT) are major participation decision factors: first, Medicare typically pays the "clean" claims submitted electronically within 14 days since claim submission, and second, Medicare pays the physician directly.
2. Non-Participation: The non-participating physicians (non-PAR) can decide on a per-patient basis to accept the reduced fee (accept "assignment") or balance-bill patients up to 15% more. Therefore, the non-PAR physician that balance-bills every patient, may receive up to 9.25% more than a PAR doctor for the same services. The downside of non-PAR is that Medicare reimburses the patient directly and the physician must invoice the patient for the full amount: the payment, co-payment and balance-billing charge. If the physician postpones invoicing the patient until the patient receives reimbursement from the insurance, the doctor risks collection problems with financially irresponsible patients.
3. Private contracting: Private contracting means that physicians opt out of Medicare completely for at least two years. During these two years, neither the opted-out physicians nor their patients can bill Medicare for any services.

Other par-non-par decision considerations:

1. Collections work-around: The number of collection problems from patients may be negligent or it can be completely eliminated the physician who collects the entire fee at the time of visit.
2. Saving grace: Financing out-of-pocket fees for more needy patients with higher fees collected from balance-billed patients might be the saving grace alternative to turning away patients.
3. Patient perception: Patients who are used to all of their medical costs covered by a system of primary, secondary (and perhaps tertiary) insurance companies, might protest higher out of pocket fees.

Note also that "participation dilemma" is not exclusive to Medicare. While some insurance companies, e.g., Oxford (United Healthcare) and Cigna still send checks to non-PAR doctors, others, like Horizon BCBS, penalize non-PAR doctors by paying directly to patients.

An AMA document (www.ama-assn.org/ama1/pub/upload/mm/399/medicarepayment08.pdf) outlines participation options and status change procedures."With a 10% cut about to be imposed, many physicians may consider balance billing an extra 9% as one means of helping close the gap between 2007 and 2008 payment amounts," the document says. "When considering whether to be non-PAR, however, physicians should consider whether their total revenues from Medicare, including amounts the program pays, patient co-pays and balance billing, would exceed their total revenues as PAR physicians, particularly in light of collection costs, bad debts and claims for which they do accept assignment."

Cheap Medical Insurance Companies Online

If you are looking for cheap medical insurance companies then your best bet is going to be looking for them online. However, the answer to finding the best possible price for your health insurance isn't just blindly looking online, but rather having at your fingertips just the right answers to the questions you will be asked so that you can create the best possible policy that will save you the most money right from the beginning. Then any additional that you save by purchasing your insurance online will be pure gravy.

Let's start with something extremely simple. Pay your premium each month automatically from your bank account. In this way your insurance company won't spend money billing you and they pass that savings on to you. Don't participate in extreme sports or dangerous hobbies. Don't drive a fancy sports car or a fast muscle car. If you intentionally put your health at risk you certainly can't expect an insurance company to reward you with a low rate, can you?

Believe it or not, your credit record also affects how much you pay for your medical insurance. When you apply for this your company will look at your credit score and the better your credit the better your rate will be for your insurance.

Don't smoke or use chew or any other tobacco product. If you are serious about finding the cheapest medical insurance online then you are going to have to be serious about breaking the smoking habit. You may have to lose weight as well. Losing weight can be even harder than quitting smoking for most people, but the fact remains that insurance companies look at your BMI (Body Mass Index) when setting your premium rate and the higher your BMI the higher your rate.

The good news is that often losing even a few pounds can make all the difference in the world and will allow you to slip down a rung on the insurance company's BMI chart - and if that happens you can save money month after month. In other words, every pound counts. If you seldom see your doctor then you really need to increase your co-payment to 50%. This will save you a considerable amount of money every month.

How large of a deductible can you afford? Increasing your deductible will lower your monthly health costs immediately. Just be sure you don't increase your deductible so much that you can't afford to pay it!

Buying your health insurance online is the best way by far to find this in companies in your state. You'll want to check with more than one of the price comparison websites if you are really serious about finding low rates, but as soon as you've check with 3 or more sites your job is done. Just grab the lowest-priced policy you found and feel confident that you have found the cheapest medical insurance in your state.

Medical Billing Network Effect in Chiropractic Coaching - The Metcalfe's Law

The pressures and the steep learning curve required of the newly graduated chiropractic doctor are nothing short of monumental because of the mounting complexities of the business in an increasingly hostile billing environment defined by insurance companies bent on minimizing payouts to doctors. The coach has become a critical element of the chiropractor's team - a consultant with experience and leadership in the field - who mentors the new chiropractor through this minefield of potential revenue-chewing issues. The enlightened coach uses automated systems that collect and segregate data among all client practices, allowing them to more easily identify and address problem areas.

This is the third article in the series of three articles focused on automated coach assistants. The first article presented an overview of the issue, touching on automated coaching assistance need, features and networking. The second article focused on specific practice issues and data collected, and how this helps the coach identify problems. The last article in this series focuses on the networking effect (Metcalfe's law).

Automated coach assistance systems (CoachMate) address every aspect of chiropractic office workflow management. CoachMate stores information for each client in a coach's database within a central repository, providing a single point of contact via the Internet to both aggregate and individual patient information. The coach can then take a universal perspective when evaluating trainee performance in the aggregate, flagging deviations and isolating the trainee who is most in need of coaching advice promptly, meaningfully, and efficiently.

CoachMate's value to the coach and to each of the student doctors grows in step with the number of chiropractors that subscribe to the coach's service, creating the "network effect." The network effect, according to Wikipedia, "causes a good or service to have a value to a potential customer which depends on the number of other customers who own the good or are users of the service." For example, by purchasing a telephone, a person makes other telephones more useful - and therefore more valuable to their users - by virtue of expanding the network. A telephone without a network of other telephones is worthless, nothing more than plastic and silicone. In other words, the more players on the team, the more value to each player. Thus, a consequence of a network effect is that the purchase of a service by one individual indirectly benefits others who use the same service. This bandwagon effect is an example of a positive feedback loop, an essential aspect of the network effect.

The network effect (also known as Metcalfe's Law) says that while the system's costs are proportional to the number of submitted claims, the value is far greater than the sum of the participants - proportional, in fact, to the square of the number of practice owners using it. For example, when you multiply the number of users by ten, the coach's system-wide cost goes up by a factor of ten while the value goes up a hundredfold. The hundredfold increase in true value represents the possible number of relationships between one piece of data to another - with ten users, there are 100 possible relationships among them. In other words, Metcalfe's law - as applied to CoachMate - says that the value to the individual practice owner and the coach using it is proportional to the number of other practice owners (N) sharing the same knowledge base and processes. The more participants, the greater the value to the extent that the number of possible value-providing relationships has been raised significantly, to a factor of N-squared.

In the early 1980s, when Robert Metcalfe discovered his law, he was vague about the notion of value. In those days, it had something to do with sharing expensive resources like fax machines and printers, exchanging electronic mail, and accessing communications technologies, such as the internet. But value is not remotely vague when considering what an automated system does for the chiropractic business and the coaches who apply it to their base of active trainees. For the chiropractic coach, CoachMate shatters any perceived limits on capacity and growth. Its users receive value in four primary ways: improved collections, lower audit risk, efficient practice management, and added revenue sources. And, according to Metcalfe's law, this value continues to grow long after the coach began using such a system, in proportion to each new practice that joins the service of the coach using the system.

Cheap Medical Insurance Online

More than half of all families with medical insurance in this country report that the cost of their monthly premium is a severe financial hardship each month, and fully 16% of all Americans can't afford health insurance in any form. So is it any wonder that almost every person in the country is looking for cheap medical insurance online?

The good news is that almost everyone can save money on their health insurance if they purchase it online. However, in order to find the very best price possible for your insurance it will be necessary for you to fill out the forms on the price comparisons websites in the right way so as to create the perfect low-cost policy to begin with.

Let's start with something simple. Did you know that you can save money on your insurance if you pay your premium automatically each month from your bank account? If your insurance company doesn't have the cost of billing you every month they pass that savings on to you. Keeping your credit clean will also save you money. All insurance companies base your monthly premium, at least in some small part, on your credit score - so be careful with those plastic cards!

If you really and truly want to find this then you can't smoke and you can't use chew. This should come as no surprise - so if you're genuinely serious about getting the best possible price for your medical insurance then you're going to have to give up smoking.

You'll also have to watch your weight. If you are overweight it should also come as no great surprise that you are not going to get the best possible price on your health insurance. Insurance companies look at your Body Mass Index (BMI) when determining your monthly premium cost, so the lower you can get that BMI the lower your cost of insurance is going to be.

Driving a fast sports car and taking part in extreme or dangerous sports or hobbies will also increase the cost of your insurance.

If you can find group health insurance you'll pay considerably less than if you attempt to buy it. Most people buy group health insurance through their place of employment, but if your workplace doesn't offer affordable group health then see if any clubs or organizations or associations that you belong to offer it to their members. You just might be surprised at the number of groups that do.

If you don't see your doctor very often and you're generally in good health then it might very well pay you to increase your co-payment to 50%. Increasing your co-pay will save you money every single month.

Similarly, increasing your deductible will also save you a bundle on the cost of your health premium every month. Just don't go overboard and increase your deductible past the point that you can actually afford to pay for it.

Ultimately if you want really cheap medical insurance you'll have to look online. In order to get the very best deal online you will have to find at least 3 different websites that encourage you to compare the prices of policies between different insurance companies. Because each of these websites only compares the prices from a small number of insurance companies you will need to look at prices from a minimum of 3 sites in order for you to see prices from the majority of companies so that you can feel confident you've found the lowest price possible.

But once you've seen the prices from at least 3 price comparison sites then you'll know for sure where the best price can be found and you can feel confident that you have bought the cheapest insurance available online and that you have saved the most money you possibly could.

Cheap High Risk Medical Insurance Online

Over half of all people who have medical insurance report that the cost of their premium is causing a severe hardship on their family's monthly budget. In fact, the cost of health insurance has gotten so high that over 40 million Americans are now without it of any kind.

Once answer is to look for cheap high risk health insurance online. This means different things to different people, but most people can agree that this is vital. One way to save money on it is to exclude certain diseases from your coverage.

Obviously this can become risky (in the event you come down with the disease unexpectedly) but it is one high-risk way to lower the cost of your insurance.

Increasing the percentage of your co-payment to 50% can save you a lot of money if you don't see your doctor very often each year, and you can always be guaranteed of saving money any time you increase your deductible. Just be careful to make sure that you can pay the deductible that you have agreed to each year.

Another way to lower the cost of your monthly insurance payments is to start a Health Savings Account - also known as an HSA. This is a special tax-free savings plan. The catch is that you can ONLY use the money from this tax-free account to pay for medical expenses. But because the money is tax-free you are getting a break on the cost of your medical bills.

In addition to a tax-free savings account you will also be required to buy a low-cost super-high-deductible health insurance policy. These policies have a minimum deductible for an individual of $1,200 and a minimum deductible for a family of $2,400.

With deductibles that high there is little chance that your health insurance will pay for any of your medical bills during a normal year. That's what the tax-free savings account is for. The advantage of the high-deductible insurance is that it acts as a safety-net in the event that you should suffer an unexpected catastrophic accident or illness that ends up costing you tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars - your life savings, your home and your other assets will be protected by the insurance policy.

Another advantage of the HSA is that any money left in your tax-free savings account at the end of the year is rolled over into the next year, allowing you to potentially build up a tax-free nest egg over time. Your employer or any insurance agent or bank or savings and loan or credit union can supply you with additional details.

If you decide to look for cheap high risk medical insurance online be certain that you take the time to fill out the forms on at least 3 different sites rather than relying on the price comparisons from just one site. By looking at the prices on 3 different sites you will be able to compare the prices from many more insurance companies so you stand a much better chance of finding the truly rock-bottom price for your health insurance.

Affordable High Risk Medical Insurance Online

The cost of medical insurance is enough to make anyone sick and because of that many people are now in the market for affordable high risk medical insurance online. While almost anyone can save money simply by purchasing their medical insurance online, a little extra effort spent in answering a few of the questions you'll be ask on the online price comparison websites could save you even more.

For example, setting up an automatic payment system for making your premium payments will save you money. If you are truly serious about finding affordable medical insurance then you can't smoke or use chew or any other tobacco products. If you currently smoke you will have to stop - or accept the fact that you will always pay more for your health insurance.

Unfortunately the same goes for being overweight. If you are overweight and you seriously want to save money on your insurance then you're going to have to try to shed at least a few pounds. The good news is that losing even a few pounds might move you down a rung on the insurance company's Body Mass Index - and if you're lucky enough for that to happen you could save quite a bit over the course of a year.

Group health insurance will save you money over individual insurance. If you can't get affordable group health at your place of work try asking at any clubs, associations or organizations that you belong to. You would be surprised at the number of groups and organizations which provide this to their members.

Do not participate in dangerous sports or take part in extreme games or other dangerous activities on a regular basis. Intentionally putting your health in jeopardy will result in your paying more for your health insurance. Driving a fast and flashy sports car or a head-turning muscle car can also increase the amount you pay for yours.

And did you know that your credit rating can affect how much you pay for your health insurance? It's true. Most insurance companies check your credit rating and the better your score the less you'll pay for your insurance.

If you don't see your doctor on a regular basis and are generally healthy you should definitely consider increasing your co-payment to 50%. Increasing your co-pay will reduce your monthly cost of insurance considerably.

Eating right, getting some exercise and just generally improving your health will also save you money on it as well as on your overall health care costs. Cut out all fried food, cut way back on the stops at fast food restaurants, eat more fresh fruits and vegetables and get as much exercise as possible.

Exercise, by the way, can be something as simple as walking around the block a few times a week or biking with your kids to school or biking around town to run errands. If you like company when you exercise why not join a mall-walking club? Increasing your deductible is a sure-fire way to lower your insurance cost as long as you don't go overboard and increase your deductible to the point that you can no longer afford it.

And that brings us to our final way of saving money on your health insurance - buying your policy online. If you truly want to save the most money possible don't stop after looking at the prices for competing policies provided by just one site. Instead, check out competing prices on at least 3 different websites.

Also, try to answer the questions on each of the websites in the same way each time. This will insure that you are comparing the same policy each time - and that is one of the keys to saving money.

But as soon as you've gotten the prices from at least 3 different sites your job is done - just pick the lowest price you've found and you can feel confident that you have found the most affordable high risk medical insurance online.

Cheap Medical Insurance Companies In Alabama

Finding cheap medical insurance companies in Alabama is becoming harder and harder to do. It seems that no medical insurance is cheap any longer. In fact, the cost of medical insurance has gotten so high that more than 16% of all families in Alabama are currently without health insurance of any kind. Fortunately if you find yourself in that position, or close to it, there are a number of things you can do today that can lower the cost of your health insurance as quickly as tomorrow.

If you haven't already set up the automatic payment of your monthly premium directly from your bank account then do so today. This isn't a huge savings, but every little bit adds up.

If you don't see your doctor very often in a normal year then increase your co-payment from 25% to 50%. This can save you several hundreds of dollars over the course of a year.

If you can possibly afford it, increasing your deductible will decrease your monthly premium almost instantly. Just be sure that you have the resources to pay for the additional deductible each year before your insurance takes over.

If you smoke or use chew you simply must quit if you want any chance of finding the cheapest medical insurance you can. If you're serious about saving money then you've got to get serious about quitting smoking.

You've also got to get serious about improving your health in general. Stop eating at fast food restaurants - or at least cut back the number of days you do considerably. Do not super-size meals and do not buy french-fries or other fried items. Changing your eating habits is not as difficult as you might think.

Getting a little exercise will improve your health and help you lose weight. Walk around the block a few times each week. Ride your bike to do errands or ride your bike to school each morning with your kids. Join a group that walks around the mall each morning. Get up, get out and move around!

There's only one place for you to find the cheapest medical insurance companies in Alabama and that's online. It's not hard to find several websites that allow you to make comparisons of health insurance prices from different insurance companies. Just make sure that you check out the prices from a number of different sites rather than relying on just one site.

But after you've taken the time to make comparisons on 3 or more websites you should have sufficient choices to pick the very best rate for health insurance that you are likely to find.

Cheap Medical Insurance In Alabama

It's hard to even think in terms of cheap medical insurance any longer. Medical insurance here in Alabama has gotten so expensive that more than 16% of all the residents of Alabama can't afford any medical coverage at all. Fortunately there is a radical new way for many people who can no longer afford health insurance to get coverage.

This new idea in cheap medical insurance in Alabama is called a Health Savings Account, or an HSA. An HSA is a self-directed tax-free medical savings account. Tax-free money is deposited into your special savings account which can only be used to pay for your medical needs throughout the year. Any money left in your tax-free account at the end of the year is rolled over into the next year, potentially allowing you to build up a nice tax-free nest egg over time.

Attached to this tax-free savings account is a low-cost super high deductible health insurance policy. These policies have deductibles of more than $1,200 for an individual and more than $2,400 for a family.

Because these policies have such high deductibles their monthly premium is extremely low, low enough for most individuals and families to afford. However, during a normal year these high deductible policies will not pay one penny toward any of your health care costs. Instead, you pay for all of these costs yourself out of your special tax-free savings account. In other words, you have to pay for your own health needs but you get to pay for it with non-taxed dollars, saving you at least 25% .

What is the purpose of the high-deductible insurance policy, then? The policy is a safety net in the (hopefully) unlikely event that you suffer some sort of catastrophic accident or that you become very ill and require long-term hospitalization or round-the-clock care. Such a catastrophic event could easily wipe out your life savings or even force the sale of your home - but with the high-deductible insurance policy your savings and your home will be safe.

You can learn more about these Health Savings Accounts where you work, or at your bank, savings and loan, credit union or at any insurance company.

But whether you are looking into an HSA plan or a more traditional health plan the first place you want to look if you want the very best price possible is online. There are literally dozens of websites that encourage you to compare the prices of health insurance policies at various insurance companies here in Alabama.

Check out the prices on at least 3 different websites if you want to be certain that you'll find the rock-bottom price for health insurance.

An Introduction to Medical Malpractice Insurance

It's common knowledge that litigation has exploded over the past few years. This is particularly true with respect to malpractice suits against licensed professionals. This category of risk generally applies to: ·
Doctors Nurses Other medical practitioners Hospitals
What Is Medical Malpractice?
Medical malpractice occurs where a medical practitioner acts in a negligent manner when treating a medical condition. Malpractice can occur from an action taken by the medical practitioner, or by the failure to take a medically appropriate action. Examples of medical malpractice include:
Failure to diagnose, or misdiagnosis of a disease or medical condition; Failure to provide appropriate treatment for a medical condition; Unreasonable delay in treating a diagnosed medical condition; Failure due to faulty equipments, negligence in maintenance of the hospital facility or non-conformance to standards also result in medical malpractice.
To prove a medical malpractice claim, the patient must prove the health care provider did not comply with an acceptable and reasonable standard of medical care in their specialty, and that this failure was the cause of the patient's harm.
When a medical malpractice claim is placed, there need to be four basic elements for a successful claim and compensation. The patient needs to show that a duty was owed when the hospital took on the patient. Next, they must show that the duty was performed incorrectly and there were obvious errors. They should show that this breach in duty caused an injury and damages (which can be emotional) for which the hospital, physician or practice must pay financial compensation. The majority of medical malpractice claims are due to medical error and 73% of these settle for compensation
How to Choose Medical Malpractice Insurance
Medical malpractice insurance falls into three categories: claims-made, occurrence and claims-paid coverage. The most common type of policy is claims-made coverage.
Claims-Made Coverage
Claims-made policies cover policyholders for alleged acts of malpractice that take place and are reported to the carrier during the policy period. Claims-made policy premiums are relatively low for the first few years due to the fact that there is often a significant lag between when a treatment is administered and the filing of a claim resulting from that treatment. Because of this, claims-made premiums are structured to increase each year
that the coverage is in continuous force until the risk presented approximates a "mature" risk. This is usually in years 5, 6, or 7 for individual physicians.
As a result, one advantage of claims-made coverage is that premiums are based on actual past and current experience. Policyholders therefore do not pay premiums for future liability that is difficult to project.
Another advantage of claims-made coverage is that it enables physicians to increase liability limits when necessary. For example, the limits of liability in effect at a policy's inception may not be enough to cover a settlement incurred today. In this case, the physician may wish to increase his or her limits of liability. Claims-made policies only cover claims reported, and arising from, incidents that occurred while that policy is in effect, policyholders must be wary when switching carriers or otherwise terminating coverage.
For Example, assume you purchase a claims-made policy with an effective date of 7/1/2003. Assume you hold this policy with no interruption in coverage for 10 years. In 2013, you submit a claim for an event that occurred in 2004. The policy in force in 2013 will respond, meaning that you will be covered up to the full limits of the 2013 policy.
Occurrence Coverage
An occurrence policy insures for any incident that occurs while the policy is in effect, regardless of when a claim is filed. Under an occurrence policy, insureds pay premiums that take into account not current experience, but future projections as well. Such claims are called "incurred but not reported" (IBNR). Occurrence insurance rates can vary significantly because of the difficulty in projecting future claims expenses. Under an occurrence policy, the limits of liability are those in effect when the incident occurred.
The advantage of an occurrence policy is that neither retroactive (prior acts) nor tail coverage is needed when terminating coverage.
Tail Coverage
Tail coverage is offered when the physician is terminated from the current policy due to retirement, change in employment, disability, etc. Every physician has a retroactive date within the policy. The retroactive date indicates the physician's entry date in the policy. Claims will be entertained for any losses that occur during the retroactive date and end date of the policy that is active as of the reporting date of claim. Tail coverage ensures that the reporting period of the policy continues even after the expiry of the policy or termination of the physician from the policy. Tail coverage is also known as Reporting Endorsement Coverage.
Every Physician has separate limits within the policy. If the physician is covered for their individual limit and opts to get covered for Tail coverage, then either the physician continues with the same limits or opts for lower limits. If the physician opts for lower limits there would be a discount that the physician can benefit on the tail premium. Any claim registered hence forth on the policy will only be valid for the reduced limits. Physician can opt for tail coverage within 30 days from the expiry of the policy or the termination date of the physician.
Premiums for tail coverage are determined by a doctor's specialty, territory, limits of liability and length of continuous claims-made coverage. Tail coverage gets more expensive the further back in time it must provide coverage since the liability assumed by the carrier becomes greater. It is usually a percentage of the insured's prior years premium.
Prior Acts ("Nose") Coverage
Prior acts coverage provides similar protection as reporting endorsement coverage. However, unlike a "tail," nose coverage is purchased through the new insurer.
Claims-Paid Coverage
Claims-paid coverage is often used by Trusts. Under a claims-paid policy, premiums are based only on claims settled during the previous year and projected for the current year. Claims-paid policies are generally assessable for a number of years after the policy has been terminated. In addition, claims-paid policies usually have restrictive claims "triggers," under which a claim is not considered formally made until a "Summons and Complaint" is received. As a result, policyholders changing from claims-paid coverage to claims-made coverage might find it difficult to obtain retroactive (prior acts) coverage from the new carrier. Physicians leaving a claims-paid carrier will most likely have to purchase expensive tail coverage from that claims-paid carrier.
Common Exclusions
o Contractual Liability
o Clinical Trials however Research Projects may be covered, the insurer will require information on these.
o Genetic damage or manipulation
o IVF treatment
o Dishonest, Fraudulent, Malicious or Illegal acts or omissions.
Risk Management & Assessment
Implementing a risk management program can help improve patient care, prevent malpractice claims and reduce costs. Physician-led research shows "risk appears related to patients' dissatisfaction with their physicians' ability to establish rapport, provide access, administer care and treatment consistent with expectations, and communicate effectively."
Insurance Company offers risk management courses to its insured. Similarly they also conducts risk management seminars periodically. By attending these seminars the physicians are eligible for risk management credits in the renewal. A Risk Assessment can be requested by the Underwriting or Risk Management Departments, Claims Committee or an insured.

Travel With Holiday Medical Insurance And Roam Free

While you are traveling many of the health insurance companies will offer you a limited coverage mainly if you have abroad trip. You may require a holiday medical insurance if your health insurance is covering from specific providers only care of your immediate area. Such policies may cover hospital stays, medical care, and also to a perfect medical facility or a transportation home.
How Do I know If I Need Holiday Medical Insurance?
Several reasons are there to have a holiday medical insurance very important for you. While traveling abroad you will definitely require to have an insurance for yourself against the potential health problems specially if you belong from a country, which gives managed health care and that too within the country only. In the same way if you are having the private health insurance, which only has coverage to specific regional facilities then the holiday medical insurance can be a must for you to save yourself from the grave medical problems.
An extra insurance may help you to have better care with a guarantee to be able to have immediate care if you already have a medical condition like diabetes or asthma that may likely act up while you are traveling.
The holiday medical insurance can be a very good investment if you are planning to travel such an area in the world that normally has overall poor medical care. For the regional medical care even if you manage to get the coverage but still your health insurance company might not cover the transportation or the evacuation to the medical facility will no way near you.
Where Can I Purchase Holiday Medical Insurance?
You can buy holiday medical insurance from various independent insurance agents as well as companies. Buying the insurance from a tour company or a travel agent is not a good idea always because some where else you may often get better coverage and rates. To find a good rate shop around and surely read every detail given on your policy so that everything that you will need is covered by your policy. The small print often will include the crucial exceptions as well as exclusions.
What Should I Look For In a Holiday Medical Insurance Policy?
The policy that you are purchasing must cover all your existing health conditions, transportation to and from the medical facilities and also the major medical expenditures. Make sure that your policy covers the transportation while you are traveling abroad mainly to an impoverished area.

Medical Billing and the Discrepancy Paradox of the Rising Healthcare Costs

Health care spending continues to rise at the fastest rate in our history. In 2005, total national health costs rose 6.9 percent -- twice the rate of inflation - reaching $2 trillion, or $6,700 per person [Catlin, Cowan, Heffler, et al, 2006]. Currently, total health care spending represents 16 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP). In the next decade, U.S. health care spending is expected to increase at similar levels, reaching $4 trillion in 2015 [Borger et al, 2006].
While some experts maintain that our health care system is costly because it is riddled with inefficiencies, excessive administrative expenses, inflated prices, poor management, waste, inappropriate care, and fraud [Health Insurance Cost, National Coalition on Health Care, 2008], at least three remaining key factors, namely, aging population, expensive medical innovation, and defensive care, contribute substantially, to the overall cost picture.

Aging populationIn the United States, the proportion of the population aged >65 years is projected to increase from 12.4% in 2000 to 19.6% in 2030. The number of persons aged >65 years is expected to increase from approximately 35 million in 2000 to an estimated 71 million in 2030, and the number of persons aged >80 years is expected to increase from 9.3 million in 2000 to 19.5 million in 2030 [Public Health and Aging: Trends in Aging --- United States and Worldwide, 2008; Kaiser Family Foundation, 2006].
"The growing number of older adults increases demands on the public health system and on medical and social services. Chronic diseases, which affect older adults disproportionately, contribute to disability, diminish quality of life, and increased health- and long-term--care costs." [UN, 2002] 125 million Americans have one or more chronic conditions (e.g. congestive heart failure, diabetes.) Chronic diseases account for 75% of all health care expenditures. Source: Burrill & Company, 2006
Expensive innovation
The American biotechnology industry has surpassed pharmaceutical companies for the third straight year as the primary source of new medicines, and biotech revenue jumped nearly 16 percent to a record $50.7 billion in 2005. Source: Ernst & Young LLP, 2006
The USA is the world's largest and wealthiest pharmaceutical market, accounting for around 48% of the world total. Per capita expenditure on drugs is US $1,069 in 2006, nearly double the level found in the rest of the world. Source: Espicom Business Intelligence, 2006
...an estimated 30% of new products under development are "combo products" - involving medical devices embedded with pharmaceutical or biologics components. [Combination Products- Navigating Two FDA Quality Systems, Microtest White Paper, 2007]. The combination products market is estimated at $5.9B in 2004, and will continue to grow at a compound annual rate of 10% through 2009. By 2009, the market is expected to reach approximately $9.5B worldwide with a majority of these revenues from drug-eluting stents and steroid-eluting electrodes. Source: Navigant Consulting, Inc. In 2004, the US held approximately 65% of the drug-device combination product market. By 2010, the US is projected to hold 57%. Source: Business Communications Inc.

"Defensive" Medicine"One of the major cost drivers in the delivery of health care are these junk and frivolous lawsuits. The risk of frivolous litigation drives doctors -- and hear me out on this -- they drive doctors to prescribe drugs and procedures that may not be necessary, just to avoid lawsuits. That's called the defensive practice of medicine.. . . . See, lawsuits not only drive up premiums, which drives up the cost to the patient or the employer of the patient, but lawsuits cause docs to practice medicine in an expensive way in order to protect themselves in the courthouse. The defensive practice of medicine affects the federal budget. The direct cost of liability insurance and the indirect cost from unnecessary medical procedures raise the federal government's health care costs by at least $28 billion a year." [US President George Bush, Arkansas, January 26, 2004]

Now let us observe the paradox:

On one hand, the participants of every ancillary industry to health care, including insurance companies, hi-tech and pharmaceutical engineers and scientists, as well as lawyers, have increased their profits in step with the rising costs of health care at ever accelerating pace.
On the other hand, the medical and chiropractic office owners - the actual health care providers - have not only failed to keep up with raising costs but have lost a significant part of their income. In fact, between 1995 and 1999, at a time when most wages and salaries in the United States rose 3.5 percent after adjusting for inflation, average physician net income from the practice of medicine, adjusted for inflation, dropped 5 percent [Reed and Ginsburg, 2003]. In 2006, the median compensation for specialty and primary physicians grew only 1.7 ($322,259) and 2 ($171,519) percent respectively, slower than consumer price index of 3.2 percent [MGMA Physician Compensation and Production Survey: 2007 Report]. In comparison, health care costs beat the inflation by 3.5% reaching the annual growth rate of 6.7 [Health Care Spending, 2008]
Diverting our focus away from trying to find solutions to the problem of rising health care costs, we ask a different question: How such a paradoxical situation is possible without a deliberate and systematic strategy against health care providers?

Medical Billing Audit - Why Should Providers Audit Payers?

A Sacramento-area surgeon couldn't schedule surgeries for more than six months because his contract was not loaded in the insurer's computer system. More than 200 of Dr. Watson's patients received letters indicating incorrectly that he was no longer participating in the network. Watson lost about 25 percent of these patients and was not paid for about eight months. Another insured spent eleven months trying to get claims paid for his family, including an autistic child. The insurer never specified what information was needed to make the denied claims eligible for payment.

Are these three isolated incidents or are they three symptoms of a growing problem with the entire provider's reimbursement system? The owners of health care practices easily recognize these painfully familiar symptoms. The better questions are: how are they related to the rising healthcare costs and what can a provider do to help?

In 2005, national healthcare costs rose 6.9 percent - twice the rate of inflation, reaching $2 trillion. National healthcare costs are predicted to double to $4 trillion by 2015. While key health care cost factors include aging US population, the arrival of new and expensive drugs and bio-tech devices, and the defensive medicine, the insurance costs alone stand out as a key contributor to rising healthcare costs. Exorbitant executive compensation became a hallmark of healthcare insurance industry, where William McGuire, CEO of UnitedHealth Group, has reportedly received over $500 million since 1992, more than $1 billion worth of options, a lump sum payout of $6.4 million upon leaving the company, and an annual pension of $5.1 million. But such compensation can be easily justified on Wall Street, when comparing it to outstanding insurance industry profits, such as 38 percent growth in earnings in the 3rd quarter of 2006.

The problem for any successful insurance company is how to make such growth sustainable? This question is difficult because the premium growth (68.4 percent) has disproportionally outpaced both inflation (16.4 percent) and workers earnings (18.2 percent) during the same period (2001-2006), making it impossible to continue to rise the premiums without losing major segments of insured population.

Without the ability to attract new clients or to further raise insurance premiums, cost reduction becomes the next most important approach to enhance profitability. Such cost reduction can be done in a variety of ways, which we conveniently divide into strategic and tactical or opportunistic approaches.

Strategic insurer's arsenal

The creation of an oligopsony through consolidation is the main weapon in the strategic arsenal of insurance companies. Oligopsony exists when providers significantly outnumber buyers, enabling them to dictate prices. Take for example, the PacifiCare's $9.2 billion merger with United Health Group Inc. in late 2005, which created a vast network of HMO and PPO plans covering more than 3 million Californians. Today, three plans alone (UnitedHealthcare, WellPoint and Aetna) cover 77.7 million insured lives. Oligopsony allows the systematic and continuous cost reduction without extra investment, e.g., annual cut of allowed rates (such as the average reimbursement for E&M allowable dropped 10 percent in 2006 and another 6.5 percent in 2007), payment suspension for specific procedures (such as EKG tests for routine physicals), offering "all or none" participation alternatives, or the creation of "tiered networks" that profile providers and incentivize patients to see lower cost providers.

Tactical insurer's weapons

Increasing billing process complexity and inventing new denial reasons through arcane terminology, disparate data formats, and modifications of CPT/ICD codes and medical necessity rules - these are all examples of tactical methods designed to increase providers costs for both billing and follow up and reduce the payments at the expense of practice owners. These methods need continuous investment in personnel training, better process management, and improved technology to keep them effective as the providers begin building more sophisticated systems to scrub and analyze claims and discover payment discrepancies and irregularities.

Provider's Response

Returning to the three incidents mentioned at the outset of this article, the joint Department of Managed Health Care and Insurance Department determined that these are not isolated cases. It analyzed 1.1 million paid claims from June 2005 to May 2007 that covered about 190,000 members in PacifiCare's HMO plans and PPO coverage [Gilbert Chan , "PacifiCare fined record $3.5 million," www.sacbee.com , January 30, 2008] and discovered 30 percent of the HMO claims wrongly denied and 29 percent of the disputes with doctors were handled incorrectly. PacifiCare paid out over $1 million and was fined additional $3.5 million.

In summary, providers need new and effective approaches to mobilize both legal and organizational talent to reverse their revenue decline. Legal methods battle market conditions like oligopsony while large-scale medical billing networks aggregate claim volumes and create resulting economies of scale to enable analytical discovery of under-payments.

Home Business Medical Plans - Find Affordable Small Business Health Insurance

The only small and home business owners who are not worried about health insurance, usually have some other form of coverage. Some are covered through a spouse's group health plan, and some already have a retirement plan from earlier employment or military service. However many small business owners have made their career out of what they do now, and so they must rely on themselves to provide a medical plan for themselves, and their family.

If you do not have employees, you need to look at individual coverage. If you have a couple of employees then you have a choice to make. A small business group plan is a great benefit, and it tends to attract and retain qualify people. However, premiums for small groups are expensive and risky. Since their is only a small pool of people to spread the risk, and since federal law mandates that insurance companies have to accept everybody, expect to pay for a policy!

Now you will be able to deduct some of this expense from your business taxes. You can also expect your employees to share some of the cost. Also, remember that employees do like group health insurance as a workplace benefit. So consider this option, but keep in mind, that costs and extra paperwork can be daunting.

On the other hand, individual health insurers get to underwrite everybody they accept. Younger and/or healthier people will get a cheaper rate. Older people, or especially those with health conditions, will either get charged more, or they may not be able to get a plan to accept them at all! Of course, every state has some sort of high risk plan for people who cannot obtain their own plan, but expect to pay for this.

Employees must pay for the premium themselves, but some companies will let you pay a list bill. You withdraw the amount from each worker's paycheck. Because you will not have the burden of carrying the plan yourself, maybe you can afford to pay your employees a bit more to make up for it. The advantage for the employees is that their policy is portable, and so they can take it with them even if they leave your company. Another advantage for healthy employees, is that the premium should be lower. However, less healthy employees, may have a hard time, and you should probably consult with an experienced agent for options.

Now, if you do not have any employees at all, or if you only employ your spouse, then you must get a family plan. If premiums seem to high, I suggest looking at very high deductible major medical with Health Savings Accounts (HSA). You can offset the deductible with the money in the HSA, and those contributions have tax advantages. Plus, if you retire and join Medicare with any money left in your account, you can add it to your retirement savings without a penalty!

How to Choose a Group Medical Insurance Plan - The Forgotten Factor

You've met with three or four insurance brokers, and all have given you spreadsheets presenting proposals from a number of insurance carriers vying for your company's business. Most of these spreadsheets, from all the brokers you met with, show basically the same selection of programs.

You go through each plan to understand it as best you can. You even run it by some other employees to get their input. Finally, you make a decision, call the broker to give him the good news, and away you go. The broker? Well, since all the brokers showed basically the same plans, you call the broker that also sold you the property and casualty insurance to your firm.

What have you forgotten?

It's a problem.

Your new group medical insurance plan has been in force for some time now. Employees come to you at least several times a week with claims problems, benefit questions and complaints.

Your job is NOT to be an insurance expert, so you call the broker that sold you the plan, looking for help. When he calls you back a couple of days after you left him a voice mail, he says he will check into your various questions and get back with you.

The broker calls you back a week later, with some garbled answers that really don't address the issues. You end up having your assistant call the insurance company's toll-free number, where she gets passed around to three different extensions, still not getting answers.

The forgotten factor

Go back to the beginning. You spent a lot of time trying to choose the right group insurance plan. But you really didn't put much consideration into which broker to write the program with. Broker selection was the forgotten factor.

Choosing a good broker is at least as important as which plan of insurance you select.

What should an employee benefits broker provide to you?

The broker will talk to your employees.

Your employees should be able to call your broker's office with claims problems and benefit questions, and talk to someone who is knowledgeable and will not leave them hanging. Your broker's office should be a dependable resource to you and your employees.

The broker will talk to the insurance company.

Your broker should do most or all of the communicating with the insurance company for all claims and billing issues. Again, you and your employees are NOT insurance experts. Your broker's office should be.

The broker will become a trusted advisor.

A good broker will become an extension of the human resources efforts of your company. His office will, by keeping your benefits program efficient and well-serviced, help you hire and keep the best employees. Even more than your accountant and attorney, he and his support staff will become trusted advisors.

How can you choose a good broker?

Make sure that your broker is a specialist in employee benefits. This will not be the broker that handles your property insurance or personal financial planning.

Ask for a list of at least 15 of his local business clients that have used his firm for at least five years, and call these referrals asking what type of job the broker's office has done for them. If the broker balks at this, or only can give you a few referrals, move on.

Make sure the broker has a knowledgeable and experienced staff. The broker is only one person, and he will often be out of the office. You should ask to talk to the person in the broker's office who will be handling the day-to-day servicing of your plan. Talk to that person on the telephone and make sure he or she seems competent and will be comfortable to work with.

The broker is often the forgotten factor. And don't you forget it.

Tips for Choosing a Group Medical and Dental Insurance Broker in Oklahoma

You may have worked with an employee benefits broker when setting up and reviewing your company's employee benefits program. This is the person that markets plans, usually from a number of different insurance companies, and assists the employer in selecting an insurer and plan design that best suits the company's needs.

But what if you're not happy with your broker or your plan? How do you go about finding a new one, or making sure your company's group insurance is in the best hands? Here are a few things to consider when you're choosing a group health and dental insurance broker.

Is the broker focused on the employee benefits marketplace?

If the broker is an insurance agent that discusses your benefits plan, and then wants to talk about your personal life insurance or property and casualty insurance, this might be a bad sign. There are thousands of different kinds of insurance out there, each with its own set of laws and policies. You don't want a jack-of-all-trades here. You want a specialist.

A broker that focuses on employee benefits will be more likely to be familiar with the increasingly complex benefits market. He should also be able to not only help you put a new plan in place, but be there after the initial sale is made to assist in the everyday servicing of the benefits plan.

Can you get referrals?

Don't be shy about asking the broker for names and phone numbers for at least 15 of his current, local business clients that his firm has served for at least five years. Referrals are absolutely your best way to distinguish between a slick talker and the broker that offers good, long-term value to his clients.

When you call these referrals, ask them questions such as "What happens when you have a claims or billing problem? Does your broker's office work with your employees on these issues, or do they have to call the insurance company? How satisfied have you been with the long-term service that your broker's office gives you?"

What kind of customer service does the broker offer?

Customer service really is the most vital factor. As the client, you do not pay directly for the broker's services. All brokers are paid an ongoing commission by the insurance company. So, it really costs you no more to work with a good, service-oriented broker than one that sells you a plan and disappears.

Are you familiar with the insurance companies being marketed?

The group medical insurance industry has greatly consolidated over the last decade or so. A market that once offered endless choices for health insurance has been reduced to less than 10 credible choices in most parts of the country. Most good brokers will show you the same array of leading insurance plans, simply because the choice is limited.

Beware of a broker that tries to market an off-brand plan, one that you are not familiar with, or that has low financial ratings. Often these kinds of programs offer low initial premiums to the buyer and high commissions to the broker, but do not perform well over time.

Because most good brokers will offer the same plan choices, the buying decision comes down to this: Which broker demonstrates the best service capability to your company? Which broker offers a long list of referrals of current, long-term clients without being asked for it?

Most employees and job seekers consider a company's benefit package nearly as important as salary when deciding whether to stay at a job or which job offer to accept. A good benefits broker should be like a human resources director for your company: helping you hire and retain the caliber of employees that makes your business successful.

How The Billing for Your Medical Services Works

If you've been to a doctor, you know how crazy things can get with the billing even if you have insurance. In this article, we seek to explain how this maze of red tape works.

Simply put, medical billing involves a series of communications between a doctor's office and a medical insurer. What is medical billing used for? As you sit atop that cold steel table awaiting your prognosis, your doctor's office is engaging in a dialogue with your current insurance company. The topic of conversation? You, of course. As your doctor checks for all your vital signs, various medical codes are placed next to your personal medical information contained within your file.

Once your doctor leaves the examination room, your file then goes into the hands of a medical secretary, and it is sent electronically to your insurance provider using the codes mentioned above. Once your insurer has your medical information, they then begin to check your policy in order to make sure that your claim is valid. If you are covered insurance wise, your insurer will then pay the claim. If not, your medical request will be rejected.

As a matter of fact, medical claims are rejected nearly 50% of the time. In most cases, a lack of adequate communication between your doctor's staff and the insurance company is to blame. Most of the time, a medical provider will have to contact an insurance company more than once in order to make a claim. Codes can become crossed, and medical diagnoses may be overly complicated causing a bit of a problem. What is medical billing used for when it comes to government medical programs?

Whether you have a private or governmental insurance provider, the billing remains the same. No matter what sort of coverage you currently have, there must be some form of consultation between an insurance provider and a medical facility. It is interesting to note just how many claims are filed every day within the United States (millions), and how many people actually know what a medical claim consists of (hundreds).

Now that you are able to answer the original question (what is medical billing?), you have a better understanding of how insurance companies work. The next time that you visit your doctor's office, think about all the different types of interactions that are occurring at that very moment. It may not be the most intriguing subject, but it does effect nearly every person that's ever made a doctor's appointment.

Rehab Billing Service Outsourcing - Zero-Sum Argument and Cost-Benefit Analysis

Over 17 percent of accounts receivable for an average physical therapy practice are beyond 120 days since the date of service. Although this may not seem to be a problem, as it would be expected that the money will come eventually, in fact an unpaid claim that is 180 days overdue has less than 1% chance of ever being paid. In other words, the average rehab practice delivers almost one fifth of its services for free. Would billing outsourcing be an appropriate solution for this problem?

Extra Time and Reduced Cost Benefits

Traditionally, advocates of outsourced physical therapy billing bring up extra time and cost gains as two main arguments in their favor. The rehab practice owner uses the extra time for patient care, family, or practice development. Cost gains are typically measured in terms of salaries and benefits of reduced billing personnel. However, the first argument (extra time) is often irrelevant to therapists satisfied with their schedules and practice sizes, and the second argument too often turns into a wash in light of commission-based fees typically charged by the billing services.

Zero-Sum Argument Against Outsourcing

Opponents of outsourced rehab billing often use the deficient denial follow up argument, which is a variation of a "zero-sum argument." It is based on an assumption that physical therapy billing service has a limited capacity for follow up and physical therapists receive selective follow up based on arbitrary criteria, such as unpaid balance. A win in terms of follow up effort for one physical therapist is a loss for another. The rehab billing service provider may skip follow up entirely, collecting the fee only on claims that were paid without any manual intervention and causing the payments to each physical therapist to shrink because of forfeited erroneous or delayed claims. But the rehab practice owner with in-house billing operation has all of its follow up capacity focused on a single practice and so, the argument goes, the in-house billing service must deliver better results than the outsourced service.

Measuring physical therapy billing quality, i.e., the percent of accounts receivable beyond one hundred and twenty days, exposes the fallacy of this argument. Note that ten percent improvement in overall billing quality means ten times more to the bottom line than one percent reduction in billing costs. Therefore, an outsourced physical therapy billing service provider charging a percentage of total collections has a larger incentive to improve overall payment performance and maintain better client loyalty than to sell a deficient service to another physical therapist.

In conclusion, rehab practice owners must establish objective performance and compliance criteria and use them systematically and within individual practice context when deciding about billing service outsourcing. Note that billing quality is a key component of the billing cost computation and the decision to outsource the billing service is based on a multi-fold improvement in billing quality. The rule of thumb is that the new combined percentage of fees and uncollected revenue outperforms in-house costs and A/R, and such performance improvement can be verified independently and continuously.

Where to Get Cheap Emergency Medical Insurance

When you're planning the trip of a lifetime, the last thing you want to think about is getting injured or ill while on your trip. However, accidents and injuries happen, and you need emergency medical insurance to help you get the best care possible while far away from home.

But Won't My Health Insurance Cover Me?

If you have health insurance, you should definitely check your policy to see what coverage is available when you're away from your home country. You will likely find that your regular health insurance offers no coverage or only 50% coverage for medical expenses. It likely will also not cover you if you need to be evacuated back home.

What Does Emergency Medical Insurance Cover?

It covers travel-related medical emergencies, whether you are a student studying abroad for several months, a businessperson, or a vacationer traveling for just a few days. In fact, you can purchase insurance for the exact number of days you'll be gone.

When you purchase your emergency insurance, be sure to check that the policy:

* Covers any preexisting conditions you have

* Includes an emergency assistance phone number you can call to help you find a doctor or hospital if necessary

* Includes emergency medical evacuation

You can also choose whether you want the policy to include additional coverages for baggage insurance, trip cancellation insurance, and trip interruption insurance.

Finding a Cheap Policy

Fortunately, emergency travel insurance doesn't cost a lot, often just a dollar or two a day. To get a cheap rate, go to an insurance comparison website. You can enter your travel information and insurance needs and you will then receive quotes from multiple A-rated insurance companies.

High Deductible Major Medical Insurance - Where to Get the Best Rates

Looking to lower your monthly premium on your health insurance? High Deductible Major Medical Health Insurance may be the answer you've been looking for. Here's what it is and where you can get it cheap.

What is High Deductible Major Medical Health Insurance?

This type of insurance covers you only for serious injuries or illnesses. You select the deductible you want, which will usually be from $500 to $10,000 per year. You pay all your medical expenses up to this deductible, after which the company pays 100% of any additional medical expenses.

If My Deductible is so High, How Am I Saving Money?

You are saving money because, while your deductible is high, your monthly premiums are low. Consider this: your monthly premiums can be half of what you would pay for a traditional health insurance program. In addition, these types of health plans are often coupled with "insurance savings accounts."

What's an insurance savings account? You can think of it as a medical 401-K, in which you regularly deposit money-on a pre-tax basis-to cover your medical expenses until you meet your deductible. So if your deductible is $2,000, you would want to deposit $2,000 in your insurance savings account each year to pay for that deductible. When you have a medical expense, you draw money out of the savings plan to pay for it.

Sounds Great - Where Can I Find a Cheap Plan?

You can find free quotes for cheap high deductible health insurance plans quickly and easily by going online to an insurance comparison website. On such a site, you can shop for a plan any time by just filling out a simple form with information about yourself and your health insurance needs. You then receive quotes from multiple A-rated companies, which you can look over on your own time and choose the best plan for your situation.

And if you have any questions, the best comparison websites have insurance professionals on-hand who will answer your questions and provide information on how to lower your premium even further (see link below).

Catastrophic Health Insurance Plus Supplemental Medical Equals Great, Affordable Health Coverage

If you are self employed or do not get health insurance through your job, then it is something you are probably concerned about. Many people have been financially ruined because they got sick or had an accident when they did not have coverage, and many studies show that people with health insurance get better care! Even if you decided to budget for a health plan, you may have been declined for coverage because of a pre existing health condition. It can be very tough to find an adequate medical plan these days for lots of reasons!

However, maybe you haven't considered the combination of a high deductible, or catastrophic, health insurance plan with a supplement. The medical plan may have a deductible of $5,000, $10,000, or even $20,000! That sounds like a lot, but it will pale in comparison with the medical costs a person can incur because of a major accident or injury. Because the deductible is high, the premiums will be much lower. These types of plans also do not suffer as many rate increases, and insurance companies usually relax their underwriting standards too!

Of course, $5,000 to $20,000 is still a lot of money to have to pay, but it is also amount you could probably borrow or pay off. Think of this size of a deductible as a car payment. However, if you ran up a $100,000 or $1,000,000 bill because of a terrible accident or illness, it would be almost impossible for most you to find that much money from a lender. That would be like paying off a home mortgage, or maybe even the mortgage on a mansion! It would be much easier to handle the car payment, now wouldn't it?

But we are not done yet. Remember I mentioned supplemental plans. You can find cash supplements to cover unexpected accidents or sickness in the amount of $5,000, $10,000 or $20,000. Because these policies only cover this low amount, they are affordable and easy to qualify for! Now you have taken care of that unexpected bill.

You can also find a high deductible medical plan that qualifies as an HSA (Health Savings Account) plan. You can set up a savings account that actually pays interest. Contributions are tax deductible, within specified limits. And you can use the money in this account for many medical costs that health insurance plans do not usually cover.

So consider what you have now. You are paying $300 to $500 less for your catastrophic health plan every month if you are like many families Take some of that money and contribute to your tax deductible savings account, and then take a little more and pay for a supplement. You have a way to pay for doctor's visits and prescriptions, and you have coverage in case of a major illness! You will probably even have a little money left over to spend on other items in your family's budget. Also consider that, no only is the HSA account deductible, the premiums may also be deductible. I cannot help you find really cheap health insurance, but I can help you save some money!

Affordable High Risk Medical Insurance Online

The cost of medical insurance is enough to make anyone sick and because of that many people are now in the market for affordable high risk medical insurance online. While almost anyone can save money simply by purchasing their medical insurance online, a little extra effort spent in answering a few of the questions you'll be ask on the online price comparison websites could save you even more.

For example, setting up an automatic payment system for making your premium payments will save you money. If you are truly serious about finding affordable medical insurance then you can't smoke or use chew or any other tobacco products. If you currently smoke you will have to stop - or accept the fact that you will always pay more for your health insurance.

Unfortunately the same goes for being overweight. If you are overweight and you seriously want to save money on your insurance then you're going to have to try to shed at least a few pounds. The good news is that losing even a few pounds might move you down a rung on the insurance company's Body Mass Index - and if you're lucky enough for that to happen you could save quite a bit over the course of a year.

Group health insurance will save you money over individual insurance. If you can't get affordable group health at your place of work try asking at any clubs, associations or organizations that you belong to. You would be surprised at the number of groups and organizations which provide this to their members.

Do not participate in dangerous sports or take part in extreme games or other dangerous activities on a regular basis. Intentionally putting your health in jeopardy will result in your paying more for your health insurance. Driving a fast and flashy sports car or a head-turning muscle car can also increase the amount you pay for yours.

And did you know that your credit rating can affect how much you pay for your health insurance? It's true. Most insurance companies check your credit rating and the better your score the less you'll pay for your insurance.

If you don't see your doctor on a regular basis and are generally healthy you should definitely consider increasing your co-payment to 50%. Increasing your co-pay will reduce your monthly cost of insurance considerably.

Eating right, getting some exercise and just generally improving your health will also save you money on it as well as on your overall health care costs. Cut out all fried food, cut way back on the stops at fast food restaurants, eat more fresh fruits and vegetables and get as much exercise as possible.

Exercise, by the way, can be something as simple as walking around the block a few times a week or biking with your kids to school or biking around town to run errands. If you like company when you exercise why not join a mall-walking club? Increasing your deductible is a sure-fire way to lower your insurance cost as long as you don't go overboard and increase your deductible to the point that you can no longer afford it.

And that brings us to our final way of saving money on your health insurance - buying your policy online. If you truly want to save the most money possible don't stop after looking at the prices for competing policies provided by just one site. Instead, check out competing prices on at least 3 different websites.

Also, try to answer the questions on each of the websites in the same way each time. This will insure that you are comparing the same policy each time - and that is one of the keys to saving money.

But as soon as you've gotten the prices from at least 3 different sites your job is done - just pick the lowest price you've found and you can feel confident that you have found the most affordable high risk medical insurance online.

Cheap Medical Insurance Online

More than half of all families with medical insurance in this country report that the cost of their monthly premium is a severe financial hardship each month, and fully 16% of all Americans can't afford health insurance in any form. So is it any wonder that almost every person in the country is looking for cheap medical insurance online?

The good news is that almost everyone can save money on their health insurance if they purchase it online. However, in order to find the very best price possible for your insurance it will be necessary for you to fill out the forms on the price comparisons websites in the right way so as to create the perfect low-cost policy to begin with.

Let's start with something simple. Did you know that you can save money on your insurance if you pay your premium automatically each month from your bank account? If your insurance company doesn't have the cost of billing you every month they pass that savings on to you. Keeping your credit clean will also save you money. All insurance companies base your monthly premium, at least in some small part, on your credit score - so be careful with those plastic cards!

If you really and truly want to find this then you can't smoke and you can't use chew. This should come as no surprise - so if you're genuinely serious about getting the best possible price for your medical insurance then you're going to have to give up smoking.

You'll also have to watch your weight. If you are overweight it should also come as no great surprise that you are not going to get the best possible price on your health insurance. Insurance companies look at your Body Mass Index (BMI) when determining your monthly premium cost, so the lower you can get that BMI the lower your cost of insurance is going to be.

Driving a fast sports car and taking part in extreme or dangerous sports or hobbies will also increase the cost of your insurance.

If you can find group health insurance you'll pay considerably less than if you attempt to buy it. Most people buy group health insurance through their place of employment, but if your workplace doesn't offer affordable group health then see if any clubs or organizations or associations that you belong to offer it to their members. You just might be surprised at the number of groups that do.

If you don't see your doctor very often and you're generally in good health then it might very well pay you to increase your co-payment to 50%. Increasing your co-pay will save you money every single month.

Similarly, increasing your deductible will also save you a bundle on the cost of your health premium every month. Just don't go overboard and increase your deductible past the point that you can actually afford to pay for it.

Ultimately if you want really cheap medical insurance you'll have to look online. In order to get the very best deal online you will have to find at least 3 different websites that encourage you to compare the prices of policies between different insurance companies. Because each of these websites only compares the prices from a small number of insurance companies you will need to look at prices from a minimum of 3 sites in order for you to see prices from the majority of companies so that you can feel confident you've found the lowest price possible.

But once you've seen the prices from at least 3 price comparison sites then you'll know for sure where the best price can be found and you can feel confident that you have bought the cheapest insurance available online and that you have saved the most money you possibly could.

Cheap High Risk Medical Insurance Online

Over half of all people who have medical insurance report that the cost of their premium is causing a severe hardship on their family's monthly budget. In fact, the cost of health insurance has gotten so high that over 40 million Americans are now without it of any kind.

Once answer is to look for cheap high risk health insurance online. This means different things to different people, but most people can agree that this is vital. One way to save money on it is to exclude certain diseases from your coverage.

Obviously this can become risky (in the event you come down with the disease unexpectedly) but it is one high-risk way to lower the cost of your insurance.

Increasing the percentage of your co-payment to 50% can save you a lot of money if you don't see your doctor very often each year, and you can always be guaranteed of saving money any time you increase your deductible. Just be careful to make sure that you can pay the deductible that you have agreed to each year.

Another way to lower the cost of your monthly insurance payments is to start a Health Savings Account - also known as an HSA. This is a special tax-free savings plan. The catch is that you can ONLY use the money from this tax-free account to pay for medical expenses. But because the money is tax-free you are getting a break on the cost of your medical bills.

In addition to a tax-free savings account you will also be required to buy a low-cost super-high-deductible health insurance policy. These policies have a minimum deductible for an individual of $1,200 and a minimum deductible for a family of $2,400.

With deductibles that high there is little chance that your health insurance will pay for any of your medical bills during a normal year. That's what the tax-free savings account is for. The advantage of the high-deductible insurance is that it acts as a safety-net in the event that you should suffer an unexpected catastrophic accident or illness that ends up costing you tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars - your life savings, your home and your other assets will be protected by the insurance policy.

Another advantage of the HSA is that any money left in your tax-free savings account at the end of the year is rolled over into the next year, allowing you to potentially build up a tax-free nest egg over time. Your employer or any insurance agent or bank or savings and loan or credit union can supply you with additional details.

If you decide to look for cheap high risk medical insurance online be certain that you take the time to fill out the forms on at least 3 different sites rather than relying on the price comparisons from just one site. By looking at the prices on 3 different sites you will be able to compare the prices from many more insurance companies so you stand a much better chance of finding the truly rock-bottom price for your health insurance.

Now simply compare all of the prices you have found from your comparisons on at least 3 different sites and pick the lowest price you find. Congratulations!

Cheap Medical Insurance Companies In Alabama

Finding cheap medical insurance companies in Alabama is becoming harder and harder to do. It seems that no medical insurance is cheap any longer. In fact, the cost of medical insurance has gotten so high that more than 16% of all families in Alabama are currently without health insurance of any kind. Fortunately if you find yourself in that position, or close to it, there are a number of things you can do today that can lower the cost of your health insurance as quickly as tomorrow.
If you haven't already set up the automatic payment of your monthly premium directly from your bank account then do so today. This isn't a huge savings, but every little bit adds up.
If you don't see your doctor very often in a normal year then increase your co-payment from 25% to 50%. This can save you several hundreds of dollars over the course of a year.
If you can possibly afford it, increasing your deductible will decrease your monthly premium almost instantly. Just be sure that you have the resources to pay for the additional deductible each year before your insurance takes over.
If you smoke or use chew you simply must quit if you want any chance of finding the cheapest medical insurance you can. If you're serious about saving money then you've got to get serious about quitting smoking.
You've also got to get serious about improving your health in general. Stop eating at fast food restaurants - or at least cut back the number of days you do considerably. Do not super-size meals and do not buy french-fries or other fried items. Changing your eating habits is not as difficult as you might think.
Getting a little exercise will improve your health and help you lose weight. Walk around the block a few times each week. Ride your bike to do errands or ride your bike to school each morning with your kids. Join a group that walks around the mall each morning. Get up, get out and move around!
There's only one place for you to find the cheapest medical insurance companies in Alabama and that's online. It's not hard to find several websites that allow you to make comparisons of health insurance prices from different insurance companies. Just make sure that you check out the prices from a number of different sites rather than relying on just one site.
But after you've taken the time to make comparisons on 3 or more websites you should have sufficient choices to pick the very best rate for health insurance that you are likely to find.

Cheap Medical Insurance In Alabama

It's hard to even think in terms of cheap medical insurance any longer. Medical insurance here in Alabama has gotten so expensive that more than 16% of all the residents of Alabama can't afford any medical coverage at all. Fortunately there is a radical new way for many people who can no longer afford health insurance to get coverage.
This new idea in cheap medical insurance in Alabama is called a Health Savings Account, or an HSA. An HSA is a self-directed tax-free medical savings account. Tax-free money is deposited into your special savings account which can only be used to pay for your medical needs throughout the year. Any money left in your tax-free account at the end of the year is rolled over into the next year, potentially allowing you to build up a nice tax-free nest egg over time.
Attached to this tax-free savings account is a low-cost super high deductible health insurance policy. These policies have deductibles of more than $1,200 for an individual and more than $2,400 for a family.
Because these policies have such high deductibles their monthly premium is extremely low, low enough for most individuals and families to afford. However, during a normal year these high deductible policies will not pay one penny toward any of your health care costs. Instead, you pay for all of these costs yourself out of your special tax-free savings account. In other words, you have to pay for your own health needs but you get to pay for it with non-taxed dollars, saving you at least 25% .
What is the purpose of the high-deductible insurance policy, then? The policy is a safety net in the (hopefully) unlikely event that you suffer some sort of catastrophic accident or that you become very ill and require long-term hospitalization or round-the-clock care. Such a catastrophic event could easily wipe out your life savings or even force the sale of your home - but with the high-deductible insurance policy your savings and your home will be safe.
You can learn more about these Health Savings Accounts where you work, or at your bank, savings and loan, credit union or at any insurance company.
But whether you are looking into an HSA plan or a more traditional health plan the first place you want to look if you want the very best price possible is online. There are literally dozens of websites that encourage you to compare the prices of health insurance policies at various insurance companies here in Alabama.
Check out the prices on at least 3 different websites if you want to be certain that you'll find the rock-bottom price for health insurance.