| Obtaining
Health Insurance Through STC
STC recently began offering group health insurance to members through Marsh Affinity Group Services. When I was laid off this summer, I immediately purchased a COBRA through my ex-employer. When I found myself fighting the benefits administrator for coverage I had purchased and paying out of pocket for healthcare anyway, I decided to look at COBRA alternatives. My experience with STC group health insurance was good. Do the math. Estimate your normal annual healthcare expenses. For each member of your household, list healthcare providers (doctors, dentists, optometrists, therapists, etc.) and prescriptions. How many times a year do you visit each provider? What does an average visit cost? How often do you fill each prescription? What does each refill cost? What other healthcare expenses do you have? Do you require regular monitoring or testing for any conditions? If you have children, include normal pediatric care (vaccinations, orthodontia, sports-related injuries). Use the full cash prices, not the deductible amounts that you have been paying. Add it all up. Now you have a handle on your predictable healthcare costs. Decide what type of coverage you need based on your health, finances and tolerance for risk. In general, higher deductibles mean lower premiums. How much risk are you willing to accept? My household consists of two healthy adults. We decided that we could accept a fairly high risk ($5000 deductible per person) in return for lower premiums. We bought only major medical coverage and paid cash for our normal healthcare expenses. This way we saved money on premiums and still had peace of mind that we wouldn’t lose our life savings if one of us needed hospital care. Remember this is a very personal decision. Look at the available insurance plans at http://stc.healthinsurance.com. How much are the premiums? How high are the deductibles? Are the services and prescriptions that you use regularly covered? Do your existing healthcare providers participate in the plan? Do local hospitals and healthcare facilities belong to the network? Consider the comfort factor in staying close to home and seeing familiar faces when you are sick. We chose a plan that our providers accept. Again, this is a personal decision. To get a quote you must provide some basic information.
This will bring up a summary of available plans and coverage. Full information on coverage, lists of participating providers, downloadable brochures and applications are a click away. The brochures and applications have contact phone numbers and email addresses for any unanswered questions. The application I received was comprehensive (OK exhaustive). Be prepared to furnish:
Some of the questions were repetitive and confusing. The most annoying part was that every time I closed the form it dumped my data. Also the application referenced a form that I did not receive and was not in fact required. (Maybe these folks need a technical writer.) Then I mailed
in my form and waited…and waited…and waited. Perhaps
it only felt that way because I was so eager to replace my COBRA
with something else. Finally after six weeks we received our acceptance
notice. To date we have not used our coverage. We hope to never
need it, but it’s nice to know it’s there. Overall my
experience with STC group health insurance was good. The information
on coverage was clear and complete. Some of the paperwork was confusing.
Contacts at the insurance company have been responsive to my calls
and emails. I would recommend this program to other members. |
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