Insurance

[Peaches]

Originally posted by Menace@Mar 13 2003, 07:24 PM
What are you folks using for health/dental/eye insurance?

Dental and eye insurance is useless. Unless you work for a huge company, ala IBM, Coke, etc. the plans out there aren't worth crap, and 99% of the doctors and dentists associated with them will come up with all kinds of things that you MUST have in order to inflate the bill that you get a 50% discount off Find a good dentist/eye doctor and if you need something expensive and don't have the $$$, they'll work out payment plans. Most medical insurance will cover dental and eye surgery.

I have BCBS PPO. Originally when I was flat broke, I had their hospital/surgical plan. It's a great catastrophic plan, IMHO. If you have Kaiser in your area, they write individual HMO plans. The good thing about BCBS is that they have very strict contracts with the providers. If a provider fails to get the correct authorization, charges too much, etc., unlike most plans where the patient is responsible for the difference, the provider is responsible. Plus, at least here, BCBS has contracts with most doctors and hospitals. And there are a LOT of companies pulling out of individual insurance - Mutual of Omaha just did - so hopefully since BCBS is large they'll be around for a while. I can't remember if you have kids, but if it's just the two of you, it may be less to get two individual policies than a family policy. Look at their group rates. When I did, my Dad was working for me and they were basing the group on him and he was 64 and it much cheaper to go individual.

Hope that helps. I investigated this for a LONG time, so if you have any questions, I may know the answer!