Aging is the enemy of life, no matter how lovely living is. You wouldn’t want your parents to grow old with failing health, but it’s inevitable. Check out how to choose health insurance for seniors.
Senior citizens are aged 60-65 and above. They are retirees who, sometimes, have critical health issues. Growing old has its pros and cons, and one of the biggest downsides is the unexpected health challenges.
You wouldn’t want to see your parents’ or grandparents’ health dwindle just because you have no steady insurance support for them. Sometimes, the financial implications of caring for your old family members can leave you drained.
How do you protect yourself from these unusual but inevitable expenses? The answer is to buy a health insurance plan. Many insurance agencies offer various health insurance plans for seniors.
However, before choosing an insurance company, you need to consider several things before accepting any policy offering. You can’t afford to make the mistake of committing your parent’s health to the wrong insurance plan. To ensure you are on the right path, you must consider these essential factors in a health insurance plan for your seniors.
The senior citizen health policy may come with a lot of complications. The health challenges an insurance provider assesses before providing the insurance may be more than you’ve thought. There are often underlying health challenges that build on existing ones, complicating human health.
Many health insurance providers maintain relationships with their clients through email marketing.
There are also different spectrums that health insurance policies cover. Aside from the popular advice to always shop for the best policy plans from several insurance companies, you can make the right senior health insurance choice by considering these:
Having medical insurance is great, but there are exceptions. Insurance indeed saves you from an overwhelming financial burden, but if there is no provision for critical illnesses, you may have to pay the out-of-pocket fee for some treatments.
Critical illness coverage integrates treatments for medical emergencies. These may be organ transplants, stroke, heart attack, cancer, or cardiovascular diseases, and the medical expenses can be very high.
Presently, the age or life expectancy in the US is unfortunately depreciating, and insurance companies want to create affordable policies. Some insurance brokers are greedy, but you can anticipate the worst and prepare for it by considering a critical illness policy.
You only need to see the emergencies to which the policy will apply. You should also properly assess the medical costs before buying the plan from your selected broker.
These emergencies may occur more often than usual, and the out-of-pocket costs are expensive. So you need to be conscious of what the critical illness policy covers since they’re cost-effective but limited to a few illnesses and emergencies.
For instance, a broker may make provision for heart attacks without integrating emergencies related to kidney failure or cancer in your critical illness policy.
Domiciliary care in health insurance provides health care for hospitalized individuals in their respective homes. Domiciliary care is not residential care. It involves a medical service where services are provided at the individual’s home.
On the other hand, residential care involves having the senior citizens stay in a specialized establishment or medical home for the elderly. If you want your parents or grandparents to still live in their house without compromising their health, you may consider this coverage.
This service is also essential if they have trouble with movements or need extra care.
Your insurance company will also cover all out-of-home treatment expenses in the policy. It’s a service that offers personalized care and if you wouldn’t like to stress your parents, consider a health insurance policy that integrates this coverage. It will improve the chances of sustaining good health.
It doesn’t mean that the senior citizens you’re buying health insurance for will have mental challenges. However, over 50% of people above age 60 suffer from depression.
Studies show that 1 in 4 adults above sixty experience mental health issues, and the most common ones are dementia, depression, and anxiety. It’s usual, and you must guard against it while buying senior health care insurance.
Expenses resulting from hospitalization due to psychiatric illnesses can also be expensive. Don’t forget that the patient may need therapy depending on the mental challenge. Not treating these disorders may compound their health challenges, leading to chronic mental problems.
While maintaining a strong relationship with friends and family is significant to prevent mental health issues in seniors, providing quality health services to deal with these issues is always advised. Rather than waiting until these challenges kick in, considering them while buying an insurance policy for a senior is essential.
Your parent may have a health condition that you want to cover in your insurance policy. These health conditions do not have to be critical or life-threatening, but you need to make permanent health provisions through an insurance policy.
For example, if your parents are diagnosed with stroke or chest pain, you’d like to purchase a health insurance policy covering existing medical conditions. The common health conditions the insurance industry has seen are blood pressure and diabetes.
Although you may need to pay loading charges or wait until a mutually agreed time before the insurance company covers these issues, they are essential to consider before buying insurance. Loading charges are the additional bills you pay when the policyholder is considered a “risky” individual because of their health complications.
There are exceptions – If you’re considering this coverage, read the policy carefully to know the pre-existing conditions it will cover. Some insurance companies also have disease-wise sub-limits. Disease-wise sub-limits means that the insurance company will not cover health fees that exceed a specific amount for specific diseases.
If you take note of these, you can make healthy decisions and go for insurance brokers with the shortest waiting period or most reasonable sub-limits. All of these will help you properly secure the senior citizen’s health.
Taking premium insurance for adults with a co-payment provision may be a good option. Co-payment is a clause where the insured will pay a stipulated amount for their health expenses while the insurance company will pay the rest. The amount is specified before you buy the insurance.
Many senior policies, especially the premium ones, which offer excellent plans for a small fee compared to standard health plans, come with co-payment options. With this, you agree to a fixed sum whenever there is a health challenge.
Your financial capacity will decide this – if you have massive cash flow, you can go for the standard health plan for seniors. If you’d like to manage your resources, you should go for the premium plan with co-payment coverage. It’s more cost-effective than paying hospital bills all alone.
Having a co-pay plan is advisable if the policyholder you’re buying for has pre-existing health conditions. It may even help prevent early discharge. It’s because insurers know that you’re paying part of the bill, which aligns with their interest in reducing the cost to the bare minimum.
Without this factor, they can pressure the hospital to discharge you as early as possible to prevent spiraling bills. However, if the policyholder has no outstanding illnesses, you can go for the plan without a co-pay.
Many insurance companies may not have a tie-up with your desired hospitals. In times of emergency, your chosen hospital may be out of reach. Proximity to a healthcare center is essential for the patient to get quick medical assistance. It’s highly important in cases of emergencies.
You can also consider insurance companies with a broad network of hospitals. These insurance companies let you choose more than one hospital for treatment. They get to go to selected hospitals depending on their location for treatments.
For instance, if the policyholder lives in Missouri and any of the eight borderline states, you may consider selecting hospitals around your home. If the policyholder comes visiting and there’s a health emergency, you’d be able to attend to it without spending out-of-pocket fees.
However, in this case, the insurance company would have to negotiate payments with you, and you must limit treatment to selected hospitals to prevent spiraling expenses.
Yes. You may think your parents have enough savings. They may have paid off debts and have no substantial financial commitment that could shake their finances. They may even have good health and sound minds, with no signs of sicknesses in the short term.
However, sickness in adults is inevitable. It doesn’t have to be a critical illness. It may be diabetes, high blood pressure, or other relative health conditions. Having an insurance plan that guards against this will keep your mind at rest. You may also need to consider a senior health insurance policy for the following reasons:
Buying health insurance for seniors is a necessity. Old age health challenges are inevitable, and if you’d need to secure your finances, an insurance policy is your way forward.
You can either go for permanent life policies or other available options. You can even opt for routine medical checkups and domiciliary care for your potential policyholder. Your choice is dependent on your budget.
However, before buying an insurance policy, it would help if you consider the factors elucidated above.
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