{"id":245,"date":"2017-06-03T09:51:06","date_gmt":"2017-06-03T16:51:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.blueskycoverage.com\/blog\/?p=245"},"modified":"2025-01-28T14:34:02","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T22:34:02","slug":"5-tips-for-choosing-the-best-health-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/plans.blueskycoverage.com\/blog\/5-tips-for-choosing-the-best-health-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Tips for Choosing the Best Health Plan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When you start looking at insurance plans, the options can sometimes be overwhelming. How do you decide which plan will have the best benefits for you at a price that fits your budget? Consider these tips while you are making your choice:<\/p>\n<p>1. Decide whether you are more comfortable with an HMO or PPO plan.<\/p>\n<p>With a PPO, you pay a bit more to get a chance to see the doctor of your choice.\u00a0HMOs\u00a0are more restricted, but can save you a lot of money. If your current doctor is an option with your HMO of choice or if you are comfortable making a switch, this can be a good fit that keeps money in your pocket. But, if you prefer to have a wider choice, a PPO may be worth the extra out of pocket.<\/p>\n<p>2. Be honest about how much you can afford in an emergency.<\/p>\n<p>A plan with a $12,000 out of pocket limit may seem affordable until you consider that you&#8217;ll be on the hook for that amount if something major happens. If you have substantial savings that you don&#8217;t mind putting on the line, this can be a workable situation. But, you may want to pick a lower cap otherwise.<\/p>\n<p>3. Consider prescription costs.<\/p>\n<p>Most American adults have a few prescription medications that they take sometime during the year. This can get costly, especially if you have a medication that you need to take every day. By picking the plan that has the best prescription coverage, you can cut your costs.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-246 size-thumbnail\" title=\"blog 3\" src=\"\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/blog-3-300x300.png\" alt=\"Insurance choice photo\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<p>4. Ensure that the plan you are looking at is\u00a0ACA-compliant.<\/p>\n<p>Independently offered plans need to meet certain restrictions to be qualifying coverage.<\/p>\n<p>5. Make sure you enroll by the deadlines.<\/p>\n<p>There are limited open enrollment periods each year for many plans. Mark the date on your calendar to make sure you are ready to buy when you need to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When you start looking at insurance plans, the options can sometimes be overwhelming. How do you decide which plan will have the best benefits for you at a price that fits your budget? Consider these tips while you are making &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/plans.blueskycoverage.com\/blog\/5-tips-for-choosing-the-best-health-plan\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":248,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/plans.blueskycoverage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/plans.blueskycoverage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/plans.blueskycoverage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plans.blueskycoverage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plans.blueskycoverage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/plans.blueskycoverage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":272,"href":"https:\/\/plans.blueskycoverage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245\/revisions\/272"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plans.blueskycoverage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/plans.blueskycoverage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plans.blueskycoverage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plans.blueskycoverage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}