What Factors Affect New York Individual Health Insurance?
When researching individual health care insurance, several key factors should be evaluated before choosing a policy. There is a choice between HMO vs. PPO type policies, the level of out of pocket expenses (yearly deductibles and co-payments), and the financial strength of the insurance company to evaluate. But, the most significant criterion to modify your coverage is the insurance provider's practices on the medical underwriting of applicants for new policies.
Medical underwriting of individual health insurance policies is somewhat different from practices in group insurance programs. Per the law, in a group health plan, there cannot be discrimination in benefits offered to any group member based the person's health status. However, for individual health insurance plans, discrimination resulting from the health status of the person is routinely practiced today and is generally legal! If a person who applies for an individual health insurance policy has an existing medical condition, the insurance provider is free to deny coverage to the applicant or to offer only insurance that excludes the medical condition or disability.
This will occur because of the required medical underwriting of each individual insurance policy which applies to many newly issued policies purchased by consumers in the individual insurance marketplace. What medical underwriting actually means is that the insurance provider is analyzing the likely financial risk attributable to the new policy based on the specific health status of the individual. When considering a new insurance policy, consumers must always call the medical underwriting organization of the insurance provider first to see how they deal with specific health issues.