It’s July 4^th – a day well-known for family picnics! In honor of that, let’s turn our attention to the kids in this latest article! For California health insurance consumers who already have a California health plan but one which doesn’t feature maternity coverage, and might be thinking about having a first child or adding to the family, please be certain to pay special attention to this next bit of commentary:

• To medically qualify for a California health insurance plan, you must not be pregnant. Even if you don’t know you’re pregnant when you apply for a health plan with maternity coverage, you still cannot get maternity coverage. So: The takeaway here is plan ahead. If you think you’re going to want to have a child, have plan in hand before conceiving.

Moving on, let’s look at some of your other priorities as it relates to the right California health plan strategy for your growing family. Here’s information about child health insurance California parents and guardians can use as a blueprint for a peace of mind health insurance strategy that works for them and their family through the years:

• You, your spouse, your partner, have group health coverage through an employer. Your employers’ group health plan, however, does not offer dependent coverage for your child. Yes, you most certainly can apply for standalone child health insurance California parents can rely on for your son or daughter. It’s done all the time and isn’t a problem.
• When shopping for a family health plan or an individual child health plan, be mindful of the coverage provided for well baby/well child visits; immunization and prescription drug coverage. In other words, you would do well to shop for your California child health insurance here at our website and check out the range of plan options available to you, but you’d do even better if you also reached out to us for the always free consultation that will help to ensure there are no financial surprises down the line when getting your new son or daughter the vital exams, screenings, and vaccines they will need.
• Gain a thorough understanding of how provider networks work and specifically who the in-network providers are for your health plan in your community: Staying in network is crucial to holding down health care costs. That applies to doctors, hospitals, test labs…The more prepared you are, the less likely you’ll get an unpleasant surprise in the form of out-of-network bills for your family health care services.
• Your healthy child has a healthy smile: Let’s keep it that way! Being proactive in your family’s California dental insurance strategy is a surefire way to avoid future pain to your family budget. Here’s where preventive care really pays off! A California dental insurance plan that provides coverage for diagnostic services and preventive care such as cleanings, exams, and x-rays and provides further coverage for basic and major services, is a proactive health coverage strategy that has been shown to pay dividends in the long term health and wellbeing of your children’s teeth and gums! Your family has a healthy smile: Let’s plan together to keep it that way!
• Your family is growing and so are your financial responsibilities: You might have added a second, larger ‘family’ vehicle to the garage; purchased a larger house that came with a bigger mortgage payment; started a college fund for that new little future doctor, lawyer, or President! That’s great! Now is the right time to think about your California life insurance strategies: Vitality is not just all about health insurance (Despite our name!). We offer experience and expertise on a range of California life insurance plan strategies from a wide array of leading life insurance companies operating here in the state that can create the important and vital financial support your family would need in your absence. For your added convenience, if you have already been approved for a California health insurance plan offered by certain health insurers you might have already qualified for a California term life insurance policy with no medical exams or additional enrollment forms to bother with. Convenience and peace of mind with Vitality!

There are more than a few solid online resources for you to use when it comes to educating yourself on child health and wellbeing issues. So too are there websites out there that can help you sort through the important changes that are taking place on the child health insurance scene thanks to Health Reform and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act passed into legislation earlier this year: Vitality Health Insurance strives to be the most reliable of those sites.

Health Reform may have meant important changes to your children. Here’s why:

• Starting this year, both group health insurance plans and new individual California health plans will not be allowed to deny or exclude coverage for your children (under age 19) based on a pre-existing condition including a disability.
• Starting as early as September, 2010, children under 26 can generally be insured under an existing or new group health plan (if dependent coverage is offered) and/or individual/family health plan. (The only exception is if you have an existing job-based plan, and your children can get their own job-based coverage.). The September date is fluid in that some health insurance companies have already committed to allowing young adults to remain or reenter plans before September while some employers can – by law – wait until their standard open-enrollment periods later in the 4^th quarter to accept applications, thus delaying reentry back into a group plan until January 1, 2011. (Check with your employer’s HR department for more information.)

In this article we’ve spent our time talking about private group or child health insurance California parents will use to ensure the health and wellbeing of their children. Remember above when we said that we want to create an online California health insurance resource parents can rely on? We meant it – and we meant that for each and every California parent or guardian regardless of their insured status: If a private California health insurance plan isn’t viable at this time, there are important alternatives such as the California Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) which California calls the Healthy Families Program. Further, it is important to note that if you are pregnant and private health insurance isn’t viable, an option in the form of the AIM Program, a low-cost health care coverage program for pregnant women, might also be available. Thanks for reading and as always we appreciate the opportunity to serve California parents in helping them achieve the peace of mind every parent or guardian deserves when it comes to the wellbeing of their children!