What Factors Affect Nevada Individual Health Insurance?
When purchasing individual health care insurance policies, a number of factors must be evaluated before selecting a final policy. There is the choice between HMO and PPO programs, the amount of out of pocket expenses (yearly deductibles and co-pays), and the financial stability of the insurance company to consider. But, perhaps, the most significant factor to affect your coverage is the health insurance provider's practices on the medical underwriting of applicants.
The medical underwriting of individual health benefit policies is dramatically different from what is required for group health insurance programs. By law, in a group insurance plan, there should not be discrimination in coverage applied to any individual member of the group based on that member's individual health status. However, for individual insurance plans, discrimination due to individual health status is routinely performed now and is completely legal! If an applicant for an individual health insurance plan has a disability or pre-existing condition, the insurance provider is free to refuse insurance to the applicant or to offer only coverage that excludes the disability or condition.
This practice occurs as a result of the process of medical underwriting of a new health insurance policy which is applied to most new policies purchased in the open marketplace. What medical underwriting really means is that the health insurance provider is evaluating the potential financial risk attributable to the proposed policy based on the health status of the applicant. Before applying for a new insurance policy, consumers would be wise to talk to the medical underwriting department of the insurance provider early in the process to find out how they deal with various medical issues.