It’s that time of year again. As Americans prepare for the holiday season, they are also preparing to choose their health insurance plans. The open enrollment period begins Tuesday, November 1, 2016 and ends Tuesday, January 31, 2017. The Affordable Care Act requires every American to have health insurance, whether it's through your employer, Medicare, Medicaid, or by purchasing your own individual plan. It’s important you choose the plan that’s right for you – for your health and your wallet.
Take Command Health, a company that empowers individuals and small businesses to become savvy health insurance consumers, points out that studies show consumers choose the wrong plan up to 88% of the time based on their known needs, costing them more than $500 a year in unnecessary health expenses. These costs are magnified for businesses who choose a one-size-fits all plan for their employees or who choose to send employees to exchanges, where plan choices can be overwhelming. If you add it up, Americans waste about $75 billion a year because of poor plan choice.
Because healthcare is so confusing, complicated, and complex, Americans are wasting money on things they don't need. It's an all-too-common scenario.
That’s where RefillWise comes into play. With RefillWise for prescriptions, you may be able to sign up for a less expensive plan to cover other basic healthcare expenses.
Here's how it works. There are four basic health insurance plans: bronze, silver, gold, and platinum. Each covers the same essential health benefits and each will be within a few hundred dollars of each other. The Affordable Care Act requires each tier to cover a certain percentage of your health care costs.
Bronze plans cover about 60 percent (so you will pay about 40 percent of costs). Bronze plans have lower monthly payments, but higher out-of-pocket costs such as copays and deductibles.
Silver plans cover about 70 percent (you will pay about 30 percent of costs), unless you're eligible for cost sharing reduction. With the silver plan, monthly payments cost less than a gold plan, but more than bronze. Your out-of-pocket costs will be less than a bronze plan, but more than a gold plan.
Gold plans cover about 80 percent (you will pay about 20 percent of costs). With gold plans you have higher monthly payments, but lower out-of-pocket costs.
Platinum plans cover about 90 percent (so you pay 10). With platinum plans, you have the highest monthly payments and lowest out-of-pocket costs.
As Take Command points out, what really drives costs, and therefore your plan choice, are the things you know about: things like prescriptions, doctors visits, therapy, medical equipment, etc. So, instead of signing up for a silver plan that could increase your monthly payments, you might choose to sign up for a bronze plan with low monthly payments. Then, your out-of-pocket costs may not be as high as what you'd otherwise pay because rather than filing on your insurance, you would use your RefillWise card to pick up some of your prescriptions. If you rarely need prescriptions or need coverage for just one medicine, it could save you money to buy a bronze plan, then supplement it with your RefillWise card.
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