Insurance Search: The Sequel.

   After my first unsuccessful and rather disastrous foray into The Hunt for the New Insurance, I was a little shy about continuing my journey. But the clock was ticking and I needed to find coverage for my family before the dreaded COBRA kicked in and eradicated any savings we had managed to scavenge over the last few years.

   Quite frankly, I felt like I had walked into a GI-Joe episode and was in imminent danger of stepping on a land mine.

So I switched identities.

   "You can do this." I told myself.

  

              Then I called my best friend. I already saw the results of what I could do.

   My best friend knows what she is doing. I think I mentioned in a previous post that I had trusted advisers... After talking me off a windowsill and getting me to sit down, she fired up the internet and took me to the official government website to shop for insurance policies, Healthcare.gov.

   This was the Market Place site to compare and shop for insurance for individuals and families as well as for small business. Together (okay, she did most of the work) we navigated the site to create an account and answered questions to see if we qualified for any aid, if we could get coverage right away, and what type of insurance we were looking for.

   First there was all the personal information that I had to put in about my family. Stuff like birthdays and social security numbers and addresses and phone numbers. Did I mention that I was a little paranoid about giving up my phone number. I mean I did that once before and what did that get me? A bizillion phone calls, some of which proved to be just pure harassment. Which lead to a great education on call blocker features offered by my phone company and introduction to Nomorobo. Now this education has proved to be a great bonus as I no longer get all those pesky robot calls from the "IRS" and my "credit card," so I guess I really came out ahead. I trusted my friend and we moved forward. Actually I think she moved forward, I believe I was holding my breath.

   There were a LOT of questions. Well, maybe not quite so many questions if you consider that many of the questions asked were repeated two and maybe three times over. A few of these questions made me wonder... like the one asking if my minor child was married. I mean, really? Didn't we put in her birthday two questions ago? Just how many twelve year old children in the United States are married? I Googled it later and was blown away by what I learned. Did you know that in many states allow children as young as 12 to be married?  WHAT?

   But I digress. I was shopping for insurance. Well, I was answering questions anyway. Many, many, many questions. After what seemed an eternity of questions, we were able to submit our information and within moments, we were give many health plans to shop from. Right then, right on the computer. No message about you will be contacted shortly by qualified insurance carriers, no bombardment of phone calls, just a list that I could refine based on my coverage preferences. Moreover, there was premium price information, information on costs to see doctors and specialists as well as access to drug coverage information.

It was as if someone handed me a hot fudge sundae!

   Not to say that there wasn't a catch. My trusty advisers warned me away from two of the insurance companies who were no longer going to cover people on the Market Place at the end of this year. Making this decision once is hard enough, but to go through the process a second time because your carrier has opted out? Not going to happen if I could help it. 

   Now feeling confident, I saved my favorite insurance company policy picks on the site (you can do that!) so I could come back later to finish the process. Then I began the real work of research on the coverage. I have learned from family experience that just because the doctor is on the insurance company's list, doesn't mean that he or she accepts that insurance policy. Sometimes these lists are not updated as they should be. I wanted to review out of pocket costs for visits and medications, verify what pharmacies they require participants to use, and compare the new policy benefits to our previous benefits.

   On the phone once more, I confirmed with the doctor's offices that they were accepting one of the two policies that I was reviewing. I called the insurance company directly and spoke to their customer service to navigate the benefit pages on their website and I talked to their participating pharmacy to verify that the medications we used were covered and what pricing tier they would fall under. It appeared that all the other options for our coverage were about the same. Whatever you do, do NOT skip this step. No matter what the price, insurance will do you no good if it will not provide you with the services you need!

   Then I took a look at pricing. Surprise. We would pay less than we had under the work sponsored insurance plan. Medication co-pay would also be less expensive. Deductible and doctor visits were about the same, but hey, lets not get crazy here! After sitting down and reviewing with my spouse, we logged in under our account and hit the accept button for the choice that seemed the best for our family. I held my breath.

   No phone calls. No explosions outside the house. Just a message asking me to provide one or two documents to complete the process. I could even upload the documents right onto the Healthcare.gov website. I promptly scanned the documents using my handy dandy smartphone app CamScanner, then uploaded it to the website.

   Just like that, we were approved. All we needed to do was to pay for the first month and we were good to go. I wound up in a payment loop when I tried to set up payment on line, but a quick call to the insurance company I had selected (Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois) and I was able to square this away on the phone. 

   I can happily say we are insured. No insurance coverage gaps. No hard sell tactics. 

   Now onto my next adventure...

Dental plans!