Health Insurance Payment Terminology

There are several payment terms that are used in health insurance payments that we would like you to be clarified about. Of course all of you know what a monthly premium payment is all about.

It is akin to paying your monthly dues to an agreed service whereby the moment you need it, the service will be there to help you. I do think there is no problem with this insurance payment term. But how about co-pay? I think and I dare say that even I did not know what this means, to be honest about it.

Actually, what the term co-pay means is that it is a payment arrangement in the insurance agreement that you, being the insured, has to pay a particular fraction or part of the medical bill every time you consult a doctor, have a laboratory examination, have an x-ray, or any other bill that may arise from your medical needs. This agreement is that what you will be paying will be just a small portion of the bill while your insurance will take care of the rest. Many are indeed puzzled by this terminology that is part of the insurance agreement.

There are just so many terms in the fine print of the insurance agreement that for us ordinary people find hard to understand. Aside from co-pay, if you think you still find some terms hard for your understanding, I would suggest that you call your insurance office for explanation Better still, visit them personally and ask them all those words and terms used in the agreement that you found hard to understand.

The problem with the insurance companies is that they seem to make it hard for the public to fully understand the contents of their insurance agreement. There is just so much legal terms used aside from the medical terms that are already hard to understand. Added to this will be the very small text print of the agreement that would tend to make your eyes water because of the strain just reading some parts of the agreement. We just hope that one day the insurance companies will improve on this, and make their insurance policies reader friendly, that is, by making the text of the policies that they issue out to their insured public more easy to read and more understandable by the common folks through the use of ordinary language as much as possible.

Another term that is used and which some people are not clear about is Medicare. Medicare is a government medical insurance that was enacted into law to make sure all employees will be subject to medical insurance coverage especially when they are out of work, or retired. The operation of this law instituted by the government for the protection of the workers welfare is that a certain percentage of the workers salary will be deducted from the workers salary every pay day, with a corresponding percentage that will also be shouldered by the employer for the payment of the worker’s Medicare monthly premium.

When the worker will be out of work or retired and needs medical care, the workers medical bill will be paid by Medicare. This medical care insurance system instituted by the government has been hailed as one of the more outstanding measures implemented by the government to help the ordinary workers in their medical needs. In fact, Medicare has been copied by many governments in the world to help their own workers cope with the ever rising cost of medical care.