When buying individual health insurance, one of the most overlooked aspects is whether your doctor is in the insurance network. There are so many different types of insurance plans out there, and each of them covers your healthcare expenses in different ways depending upon what kind of coverage you have availed.
So, before you go ahead and get an insurance plan, it is essential to know if your doctor is within the plan’s network or not. You can do that by gathering some important information, and in this article, we will tell you all about these essential information points, so read on.
Information You Need About Health Insurance Companies
When you are about to buy health insurance from health insurance companies, you will want to make sure that your current doctor is in the insurance plan network. You can determine that by collecting the following information:
- The name of the insurance company and the plans they offer
- The type of insurance plan you have bought from the company or plan on buying
- The exact name of the insurance product that you have purchased or plan on purchasing
- Name of the doctor or specialist you want to visit and get treatment from
- Whether the insurance plan you have is from a government-subsidized program such as Medicare, or you have bought it through a broker such as The Benefit Link.
Now keep in mind that the same insurance provider can offer different insurance plans with varying doctors’ networks, which is where things can get complicated.
The complications are further increased because insurance companies set geographical areas, and doctors within these areas are included in the network, and those who operate outside these areas aren’t. So it is imperative to fully understand that some insurers will offer no coverage for visits to doctors outside their network. At the same time, other companies might provide coverage outside their network but at a higher cost.
We hope you understand the importance of knowing the type of plan you have and the said plan’s network. Even when you are about to buy health insurance, it is crucial to make sure that the doctors you wish to get treated from are a part of the network.
When you are shopping for health insurance plans, you can determine whether your doctor or the doctor you want to get treated from is within the specific plan’s network or not by calling their clinic. Most doctors will be happy to provide information about whether the program you have extends its network to the said doctor or not.
If you need a referral, your doctor’s office can also arrange that for you. Simply put, calling your doctor’s clinic to determine whether they are in-network of your health plan is the easiest way to answer this question.
You can also go to your insurance provider’s website and check to see if you can find your doctor in the plan network for your specific plan. However, you will need precise information about your health insurance plan and its coverage for this method to work.
The last and one of the more straightforward ways to find out if a specific doctor is in-network or not is to call the insurance provider’s customer care. They will ask you for some information about your plan and your credentials, along with the doctor’s name.
Once you provide the information, they should check their database to inform if the doctor is in-network or not. They can also explain the costs if the doctor you need to get checked by is out of network.
In the hunt for affordable health insurance, it is easy to overlook the network of the doctor. However, by simply calling the doctor or the insurance company with all the information about your plan, you can find this out quickly.
