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+--- Thread: High Deductible Health Plan? (/showthread.php?tid=11008)
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Re: High Deductible Health Plan? - Apoc - 07-09-2015
Steve85 Wrote:How do you guys determine your HSA contribution amount?
My first year was deductible plus a wild ass guess of additional expenses (10% coinsurance). I've adjusted this amount over the years based on when we run out and what we believe upcoming medical expenses are. For example, I jacked mine up $500 this year because I knew there was likely a surgery in our future.
Re: High Deductible Health Plan? - D_Eclipse9916 - 07-09-2015
SlimKlim Wrote:Are you guys using HDHPs and HSAs self-employed or consultants? If not, do you not have an insurance option with your employer? .
Some are terrible, some are good. Deloitte is $150 a month after taxes for the "never worry about it" plan. I like piece of mind. That said it shoots up to I think 4-500 a month for families which is what I bet Evans situation is. Luckily Jess is a govvie so we are on her plan once we get married.
Re: High Deductible Health Plan? - WRXtranceformed - 07-09-2015
Ah man such an awful thing to have to deal with. That's what America voted for so this is what we get to deal with. In my life before software sales I worked in insurance (P&C as well as life and health) and honestly the only people who really needed some kind of reform were the ones who were self-employed, disabled or retired and had pre-existing conditions that caused them to be uninsurable. This could have probably just been fixed with a law or two forcing insurance companies to do it. Regarding those who couldn't afford insurance, hospitals have been writing off the costs of "free" healthcare for the uninsured for years. Kind of like credit card companies that know a certain % of their cardholders will default, it's basically just a cost of doing business. They make their margins back elsewhere (which in some ways is what Evan was referring to, the wackiness of negotiated cost vs. billed cost to insured vs. self-payers. Every hospital bill can be negotiated by the way, even ones your insurance company handles). The gubbimint doesn't do anything exceptionally well and managing health insurance and the technology behind it was no different.
We are extremely fortunate to have amazing benefits through my company. 90/10 coinsurance, $15 copays including a one time copay for any and all pregnancy related visits / hospital stays, $10 prescriptions, free birth control, free preventative visits, $250 hospital / surgery deductible and $1,250 max out of pocket per year per person ($3500 for entire family). Some hospitalizations haven't cost any out of pocket at all due to the way the plan is structured for physician referrals to a specialist or to the ER/hospital. It costs me $243/month for both of us, but the company subsidizes a LOT (I see it on our year end "total compensation" statements). The plan is pretty much unheard of nowadays and every doctor and hospital we visit tells us as such. I don't even both with an HSA or "lose it or use it" FSA because the money would go unused and our out of pockets are so low. And unfortunately we have had to use it a lot this year; Rachael went to the hospital twice, had to get some heart monitoring and CT scans done. Bills so far would have been in the 5 figures for each visit, we only owed $215. My company pays average salaries for our industry but we're definitely not at the top of the heap; our benefits are one of the main reasons why I have never seriously considered any other opportunities that have come my way.
I would rely on the advice of the other guys in this thread who are having to deal with the Obamacare disaster as it were but I wanted to jump in and say that when you consider future job opportunities don't sleep on how valuable the benefits are to the "total comp" package.
Re: High Deductible Health Plan? - WRXtranceformed - 07-10-2015
D_Eclipse9916 Wrote:You can join together on a joint health insurance policy even if you aren't married yet in some states. Something to look into if it will save you $ and give you better coverage.SlimKlim Wrote:Are you guys using HDHPs and HSAs self-employed or consultants? If not, do you not have an insurance option with your employer? .
Some are terrible, some are good. Deloitte is $150 a month after taxes for the "never worry about it" plan. I like piece of mind. That said it shoots up to I think 4-500 a month for families which is what I bet Evans situation is. Luckily Jess is a govvie so we are on her plan once we get married.
Re: High Deductible Health Plan? - Beej - 07-10-2015
I don't know enough about Obamacare to say what effect it's had, but I can safely say that my healthcare options have gotten worse almost every year since I got my first "real" job (10 years now).
I made a huge spreadsheet of of the like dozen options we had this year, taking into account monthly premiums, deductible/out of pocket. and tax savings with HSA. I do agree with Evan that it sucks to go into an appointment with a "we're gonna pay full price" mentality, but the HSA helps offset that in that it kinda feels like this extra side account you don't remember putting money into.
In the end, do your math, and accept that it's a gamble either way - that's just the nature of insurance.
Re: High Deductible Health Plan? - D_Eclipse9916 - 07-10-2015
WRXtranceformed Wrote:D_Eclipse9916 Wrote:You can join together on a joint health insurance policy even if you aren't married yet in some states. Something to look into if it will save you $ and give you better coverage.SlimKlim Wrote:Are you guys using HDHPs and HSAs self-employed or consultants? If not, do you not have an insurance option with your employer? .
Some are terrible, some are good. Deloitte is $150 a month after taxes for the "never worry about it" plan. I like piece of mind. That said it shoots up to I think 4-500 a month for families which is what I bet Evans situation is. Luckily Jess is a govvie so we are on her plan once we get married.
Haven't looked into it. It breaks out like this which is why we haven't.
0 deductible, everything paid for but our co-pay of $10 for doctors appointments, and like $20 for subscriptions. Jess gets a nice benefit of $0 for emergency, I have to pay a copay of $85.
Each of us pay $150 a month. If we were on the same plan it was $300 a month. So no savings. However with a kid, mine spikes to 450-500 a month, while hers will never go above $300 a month. Kids will be in the next few yeRs so our next "qualifying event" such as marriage we are switching.
We could do high deductible, and it would save us about 1/2 our monthly premiums which does add up, but we like peace of mind and going to the doctor without worry. My last job I saved money on a high deductible and it worked, but I always had in the back of my mind that if I got into something nasty, I might be on the hook for that $7500 or $10k which isn't that bad if you are saving $1k a year. Peace of mind : worth $1k a year.
Re: High Deductible Health Plan? - D_Eclipse9916 - 07-10-2015
Btw- why I bring up mine specifically is homeboy over here works at the same company so has the same available plans.
Re: High Deductible Health Plan? - Ryan T - 07-10-2015
I"m with DJ, I'm a 'govvie' as well and opted for a standard plan with a very low deductible, $20 co-pay for doctors and $20 for prescriptions. I pay a little more month to month for the insurance, but I enjoy the piece of mind knowing that if something bad happens I'm not on the hook for several thousand dollars.
Re: High Deductible Health Plan? - Steve85 - 07-10-2015
Forgot to mention, our plan does have an employer matching contribution, I think it's up to 1500/yr. So to get close to 5K deductible, my contribution is set to $3K, and they match dollar to dollar for six months which helps front load the account.
Also, if you're using an HSA, you can only use a "Limited FSA" in conjuction. The limited FSA can only be used for dental and vision. We use both since the my wife and kids wear glasses / contacts. It wasn't clear to us two years ago and we double-dipped, using the FSA from her work to have money set aside immediately while the HSA account built up (FSA is funded Jan 1, HSA is incrementally funded). Haven't had the IRS come knocking yet but we'll see...
Anybody negotiated a hospital bill and have any tips / tricks?
I'm looking at what Chris paid for the MRI and my estimate through Anthem's page says $2,500 - $3,000. No idea how accurate that is?? And yeah, pisses me off that I asked while we were getting him registered for the scan how much it would be and they couldn't say until it "went through the insurance".
Re: High Deductible Health Plan? - Apoc - 07-10-2015
I knew I had it good, but I didn't realize how good.
$154/month for the wife and I
$2000 deductible, but Amazon pays $1000 of it; no other deductibles
no copay, 10% coinsurance after the deductible
no charge for preventative care
$4000 out of pocket max per year; no spending limit
In summary, we pay $1850/year in premiums, pay the second $1000, then pay 10% of the next $30,000. On average, we're probably spending $4000/year on medical bills including premiums. All of it pre-tax because we use FSA for the out of pocket.
FWIW, our HDHP is $3000 deductible with $6000 out of pocket max.
Re: High Deductible Health Plan? - V1GiLaNtE - 07-10-2015
D_Eclipse9916 Wrote:Btw- why I bring up mine specifically is homeboy over here works at the same company so has the same available plans.
DJ, are you on the Aetna Open Access?