California health insurance consumers should have a healthy lifestyle game plan and make use of preventive care services. Are you shopping for California medical insurance and an affordable California health insurance plan in particular? Pursuing a healthy lifestyle path can be a real difference-maker physically, mentally, and financially.
If you’re a regular reader of the Vitality Blog you know we’re huge proponents of encouraging clients to have a healthy living lifestyle game plan. What’s that? Well it’s a lifestyle that includes good nutrition, regular exercise and no smoking. Maintaining a lifestyle like that can also make you quite popular with the insurance company’s underwriter! If you apply for a health plan and have a medical history that includes an incident of illness or injury and/or currently take a prescription drug; the insurance company underwriter is going to make assessments about the risk you represent to that underwriter’s company. One way to impress the underwriter is to fall within the height/weight guidelines each insurance company has for applicants. Making a good impression on an underwriter can ultimately be the difference-maker in saving you money in the form of a lower premium rate or avoiding being declined coverage by an insurance company.
One component of 2010 Health Reform legislation was the mandate calling for the inclusion of recommended preventive services without charging you a copay, coinsurance or deductible – provided that these services are delivered by a network provider – in all new California health insurance plans purchased on or after September 23, 2010. This effort – contained within the Affordable Care Act – to help make wellness and preventive services a more affordable and accessible part of a healthy lifestyle strategy is an acknowledgment that prevention is a vital tool in helping to maintain health and wellbeing for the long run and that preventive services today can help prevent more expensive health care expenditures down the line for the California health insurance consumer!
Living and working here in Ventura, the team at Vitality has year round access to great exercise pursuits at local beaches, foothills, and an array of other recreational pursuits! One of our favorites – if we can get past the occasional chilly morning (Ouch!) – is the opportunity to swim year round at the Ventura Aquatic Center! We see for ourselves the benefits of regular exercise enjoyed by so many of our friends and neighbors in terms of better health and reduced stress. These very same pursuits can be important tools in both your fitness and your financial planning arsenal: Everyone wants the most affordable California health insurance strategy for themselves and their family. You can help make that happen with the healthy lifestyle strategies you and your family implement as part of your daily routine. And please: Once you’ve secured that affordable California health insurance? Be diligent about using the preventive services included in your plan. Preventive health care is an integral part of your healthy lifestyle strategy moving forward!
For California health insurance consumers, going uninsured is not a viable option. A just published UCLA Center for Health Policy Research states the number of uninsured residents continues to climb and that the severity of the loss is spread out amongst the entirety of the state. Ventura County – home to Vitality’s main office – was one of many California counties where the number of uninsured was on the rise as a result of the state’s economic downturn.
If you have lost your health insurance and find yourself searching for an affordable California health insurance plan for yourself and/or family, we can help. We do understand: This is an emotional time for many Californians: Jobs have been lost and along with those jobs, the health coverage you and your family were dependent on.
The first, most important step you can take is to be proactive in seeking out affordable individual California health insurance plans. While you may have COBRA coverage at present, you probably already know that is an expensive option. While you still have that COBRA coverage, take the time to reach out to a California health insurance professional here at Vitality and let’s discuss what your unique needs are as they relate to health coverage for you and your family. Our client services are always free as are the fast, easy, and convenient California health insurance quotes you can access via our website’s easy-to-use quote engine or via a personalized one-on-one client consultation with a member of our team.
Some thoughts before delving into the individual health insurance marketplace:
- First, it is important to put aside your emotional attachment to what you might have been used to as employee covered by group health insurance California businesses purchase on behalf of their employees.
- Next, it is important to look past any initial negativity you may have when you hear or see the words ‘high deductible health plan’. In the pursuit of affordability, you’ll want to look at these plans and especially the HSA-compatible high deductible health plans. These health plans are capable of being matched with a Health Savings Account and have been shown to provide important tax savings, typically lower monthly premiums, and – perhaps for the first time in your dealings with health insurance – have the very real ability to empower you and your choices in how your health care dollars are spent!
- High deductible health plans are exactly that: Health plans with high annual deductibles and higher annual maximum out-of-pocket expenses. These are perhaps quite unlike what you were used to as part of a group health coverage scenario but they still provide absolutely vital benefits to their owners:
- First and foremost: Owning this health plan is about protecting your long term financial wellbeing. You know that health care costs in this country are high. Encountering a serious illness or injury without access to health insurance can be financially devastating. Medical bankruptcies do occur. While a high deductible plan may not be your first choice for a health plan, they should still have an important place in your overall financial planning strategy.
- These plans typically provide varying degrees of preventive services. Plus – thanks to Health Reform – certain new preventive services will be added to all new plans sold on or after September 23rd, 2010 and these will be covered by your plan without charging you a copay, co-insurance or deductible – provided that these services are delivered by a network provider – as mandated by the Affordable Care Act. If using your preventive health care services wasn’t something you typically did before….? Please make sure it is something you do now. Being proactive with your preventive health services, practicing a healthy living lifestyle with regular exercise and good nutrition (And please quite smoking or don’t start!) are all part of successfully using the cost saving advantages offered by high deductible health plans.
- Owning a health plan makes you a member of that insurance company’s health plan: That means that when using network providers you’ll likely pay less for the services of the providers in that insurance company’s network! That’s budget friendly to your household budget. So here again, owning a health plan provides yet another important advantage.
We mentioned above that we understand California health insurance consumers. We also understand that the shopping process for the right California health insurance strategy can be frustrating. Some consumers have used group health coverage benefits their entire lives dating back to their parents’ plan(s). This may be the first time you have ever shopped for health insurance in California. This is where reaching out to the Vitality Health Insurance Services team can alleviate stress and helps you create a new California health insurance strategy for you and your family that removes worry and helps to ensure peace of mind moving forward.
We’ll help you understand the affordable options available to you; walk you through the health insurance underwriting process, and then – once your plan is in place – we’ll be your easy-to-reach point of contact for any future service related issues or questions you may have. Here again, our client services are always free and always dedicated to providing the client with a Total Quality experience.
The selection process for your California health insurance plan and California life insurance plan can be very similar in some respects. The team at Vitality offers experience and expertise in both and is here to help you create winning buying strategies for both of these important insurance products. Let’s review some of what makes these two insurance products similar for the California insurance shopper:
- Well – to state the obvious – the process of securing the most affordable California health insurance plan and a California life insurance plan will involve a review of your past and current health status. The savvy California insurance consumer can do themselves a real favor here by practicing healthy living strategies that include proper nutrition and exercise and not smoking! Quitting smoking or better yet –never starting! – is one great proactive way to help yourself secure lower insurance premiums. We always put this item first even though your health check comes after you apply. Why? Because heading into the underwriting process you should know your own personal dedication to a healthy living lifestyle will likely always serve you well when it comes to buying insurance of one form or another.
- Okay; you’re applying for one or both types of insurance: A California health insurance plan and/or a California life insurance plan. Here again, the two share some similarities as the consumer can quickly and easily consult with a member of the Vitality team – always for free – and get a sense of which plan strategy is uniquely right for that consumer and their family. A quick check of our website’s quote engine, where you can get a quick, easy, and convenient California health plan quote will tell you that the range of health plan options is pretty broad. The same holds true for your life insurance plan options. Our role in this process is to help narrow the range of options down to a manageable list of choices that focus in on what is best for your unique situation.
- The balancing act of performance and affordability. What makes an HSA-compatible high deductible health plan the right choice for one consumer and another type of PPO health plan better for another? What makes the choice of an affordable California term life insurance plan or permanent/whole life insurance plan the best strategy for a consumer? Here again, this is our strength: Your Vitality California health and life insurance professional will help you create a strategy that provides the coverage you’re looking for within the financial parameters of your budget. Placing you in either a health plan or life insurance policy that looks great on paper today but isn’t financially viable when the premiums come due is a situation we’re determined to help you avoid. Our careful, considerate client consultation is dedicated to helping the client select the best plan from both a cost and performance standpoint.
There’s one other important similarity shopping for either plan with Vitality will share: Our client services and support are always free. Always. The work we do on behalf the client as an independent authorized agency represents one of the best ‘value-adds’ a California insurance consumer will experience in the shopping process for a health or life insurance plan in our state. We’re here to eliminate concerns and in their place ensure peace of mind that the strategies you create will work best for you and your family moving forward into the future!
