Private Health Insurance Help Guide

Getting a private health insurance has several advantages. As compared to relying on your employer's health insurance, a private health insurance can give you your preferred coverage. Before deciding to purchase a private insurance policy, learn what things to prioritize. Knowledge of what a good private insurance should have gives you an edge. This also makes it easier to differentiate a good policy from a bad one.

Ask Questions

There are specific concerns you should consult with the insurance provider. The features and prices of an insurance policy often rely on individual situations. Try to clarify these things with your potential private insurance provider:

- How do waiting periods apply? What periods apply for specific conditions?

- What co-payment or excess conditions apply? Do you impose an annual limit for membership or per person?

- Does the policy exclude certain treatments? What services are included but rarely used?

- Do you impose restrictions on treatments from public hospitals?

- Do you provide coverage under my preferred health practitioner and healthcare institution?

- Do you provide out-of-pocket expenses?

Before you purchase a policy, get a quote from the insurance provider. You should compare different quotes before choosing an insurance plan. Scouting the market for more quotes and providers can help you find a good insurance investment.

Consult Your Doctor

You should consult your doctor on what services and treatment you need to look for in a policy. The best private health insurance policy should cover for most of your health care needs. Take a look at your patient information including family medical history. This can determine potential health problems and what services you can use. Some policies can offer hip-replacement or birth-related coverage but you will most likely not need such services unless when special circumstances come up. Instead, look for other types of services. Basic checkup and complementary services should be more useful than specialized services. If you can find a policy that offers some type of coverage for special situations and provides basic and more necessary treatments, go for that insurance plan. Taking away many services and coverage you do not need can also reduce your private health insurance premium.

Work with a Broker

It is easier to get comparative and good quotes if you work with a broker. A broker often already works with a network of insurance providers. This makes it easier to find providers that fit your preferences and offer what you need. You also lessen the risk of dealing with a bad private insurance company. Brokers already know the ins and outs of the insurance industry. They know people and can easily spot a good package from a bad one.

When looking for a health insurance in Australia, you should also check the premium rates. Naturally, you cannot choose a provider with a monthly premium you cannot afford. Instead of getting good health coverage, you only risk going into debt.

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American National Insurance - 7:04 AM

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Health Insurance Quotes on a Rise

The United States gave a mandatory insurance law in 1798 under the second president and founding father, John Adams. This law was made mandatory for any private employees and maritime vessels that were modern ones and this act was carried out for several years.

The health care system in the United States relies heavily on private health insurance companies now and it is the source of primary health care for consumers in America. In the late 1900's and 2000's, health advocacy companies began emerging with assisting patients to overcome complexities in the healthcare system. The complexity of the health care system resulted in an assortment of problems for the civilians living in America. With increasing expenses and improvement of healthcare, studies show that 62 percent of individuals that declared bankruptcy in 2007 had unpaid medical expenses of $1000 or more. Moreover, 92 percent of these cases had medical debts that exceeded $5000 and private insurance companies were estimated to rapidly report 50 percent of all national health spending. How did it come to this?

Recent studies on factors affecting the increase in health insurance quotes show as follows:

1. Increase in utilization created by the increase of consumer demands - Lifestyle related factors are the source of increase in utilization. Self inflicted illnesses such as obesity, excessive consumption of alcohol, inhalation of tobacco smoke and recreational drug use lead to healthcare concerns. This in turn increases consumer demands for insurance.

2. New treatments with higher priced technology and more intensive diagnostic testing - Everyday, doctors and scientists look for new methods and affective remedies for complicated diseases such as Cancer, AIDS, Ebola Hemorrhagic fever, etc. Thus more time and money spent on medical resources and of course, with the development of medication comes with improved technology that assists the development of these cures.

3. Age - Civilians in advanced countries are living longer and the populations are aging therefore senior citizens require more medical attention than the younger healthier residents. Thus health insurance can assure protection for the elder population.

It is not surprising to discover that 80 percent of the population that filed for bankruptcy are still insured. People with moderate and low incomes are affected mostly by these factors however; there are cheaper online health insurance quotes that assist people from the middle and lower classes with finance confinement.

Numerous websites provide free online health insurance quotes. These sites will provide options for you to select from all affordable online insurance quotes and medical coverage policies. You can compare these online insurance quotes to select the cheapest and most reliable health insurance company for you and your family.

We provide the best info about health insurance quote and online health insurance quotes. For further details please visit the provided links.

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American National Insurance - 3:30 AM

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Infection Control - 4 Effective Methods of Patient Management

It is true that within a health care facility infection can spread from contaminated instruments, materials and improper disposal, or even from the staff and visitors. But the fact remains that the patients are the single largest factor from which infection spreads and are also the most vulnerable when it comes to getting affected by such infection due to their medical condition and generally weakened immunity systems. In such a situation managing patients in a health care set up assumes extreme importance to check the spread of infection.

The following 4 points will help in better management of the patients for ensuring infection control.

• Proper Placement: Patients must not be accommodated randomly just to fill in the 'gaps'. Remember that placement of a patient is very important in any hospital to reduce the chances of spreading infections. Patient placement in a general ward with plenty of beds is crucial, and any patient with a highly contagious disease must never be placed in the center of other patients as the susceptibility of contracting diseases increases greatly.

• Spacing: In addition to patient placement the spacing between beds is equally important. Having the beds too close to each other makes it difficult to accommodate medical equipment and also hinders movement and working of the health care staff, but more importantly in increases the risk of spreading of diseases through direct or even indirect contact, and also makes the patients more vulnerable to cross-contamination. Thus proper spacing is important for infection control, with the ideal distance being between 1 to 2 meters.

• Separate Rooms: Single rooms are the best options to lower the risk of spreading diseases as the contact is limited to health care personnel who are well covered by suitable personal protective equipment. However, if sufficient single rooms are not available then patients may share a room, but you must ensure that patients with the similar infection and source organism are kept together. Such rooms may also be marked accordingly to differentiate them from other rooms so that such areas are accessed only by minimal people. But whether the room is occupied by a single patient or shared, there must be proper toilet and hand washing facilities attached to the room itself.

• Transporting Patients: Movement of patients within the hospital must be minimized as much as possible to avoid the risk of spreading infection to the other areas of the facility. However at times transporting the patient is unavoidable whether it is to a surgery room or for any other tests and treatments. In such cases sufficient measures must be taken to avoid transmission risks by covering up the patient well and also placing face masks for particular diseases, while contact with other surfaces must also be minimal. And needless to say the workers moving the patient must have on the proper gear.

As you can see a few careful and thoughtful tips while managing patients in a health care facility can help in curtailing infection risks and as such should be treated as a method of infection control.

For more information, please visit our infection control website.

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American National Insurance - 10:54 PM

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4 Features of the Security Rule of HIPAA

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) contains several laws wherein each set addresses different issued faced by all the concerned parties in the matters of healthcare and insurance. Laws for ensuring that an individual continues to have a health cover even in the event of changing jobs and the Privacy Rules for protecting the patient's health information are fairly well known, however another set of HIPAA laws called the Rules which work quietly in the background for protecting electronic information are equally vital. Due to the changing scenario of the healthcare industry and wider adoption of the electronic medium, Security Rules have gained tremendous importance in recent times.

The following points will tell you more about HIPAA's Security Rule.

• Need For Security Rule: For a very long time HIPAA has been promoting the implementation of electronic medium for managing data. Some of the advantages projected include lesser paperwork, reduced administrative cost, and better safety of data. Thanks to the persistent encouragement of HIPAA the use of the electronic media gradually increased and as a result today a majority of the entities are using this medium on a large scale. However using the electronic medium for storing and transacting data has given rise to newer threats and risks of unauthorized access, which prompted HIPAA to introduce Security Rules to provide the required guidelines for managing electronic data. Thus the Security Rule came into effect in the year 2003.

• Protected Data: All the health information of the patient that can lead to identifying the individual are protected under the Security Rule provided the data is in the electronic form. Such information is collectively referred to as the electronic protected health information (EPHI). All scenarios where the EPHI is created, transmitted, received or stored by the covered entities fall under this rule. But remember that the these Rule does not cover any kind of data that is on paper or which is communicated verbally.

• Safeguards: The Rules of HIPAA require the covered entities to undertake a number of different safeguards to protect the EPHI at every level. This includes Administrative safeguards where the entities must identify the risks and frame policies accordingly to protect the data. Physical safeguards will ensure that sufficient measures are taken for the security of the equipments including restricted physical access to such areas. And lastly the technical safeguard makes sure that the integrity of the data is preserved and can be accessed or transmitted by authorized personnel and entities only.

• Flexibility: Rules require that each entity take the necessary safeguards according to the threats anticipated by them. However since the sizes of different entities may differ greatly the rules have adopted a more flexible approach that allows each entity to analyze their particular need based on factors like size and resources so as to scale the rules and make them feasible for implementation.

Security Rules are to be followed by all the covered entities and any willful breach will invite penalties just as in the case of the other laws of HIPAA.

For more information, please visit our HIPAA website.

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American National Insurance - 7:42 PM

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Can Health Savings Accounts Cut Premiums?

Despite the increasing cost of health care, many people are discovering that they can lower the cost of maintaining health care coverage by 40 to 50 percent when they trade in an expensive co-pay plan for a high-deductible health plan that can be combined with a Health Savings Account (HSA).

Before you can set up a Health Savings Account, you need one of the high-deductible health plans. Only certain plans with deductibles of $1,200 or more are actually qualified to permit you to start a special kind of savings account that gives you tax-free earnings and a tax deduction for the money you deposit. Plans with deductibles are becoming increasingly popular.

Even high-deductible plans provide 100-percent coverage for many common things like flu shots, an annual check-up and screenings for cancer, diabetes, heart disease and more. There are no copays or co-insurance, either. You can get help to lose weight or stop smoking, too, without having to meet the plan's deductible as long as you got the policy after September 22, 2010 when health care reform became law. With that in mind, you may want to get a plan with a higher deductible because as a rule, the premiums are less for the higher deductibles.

As of 2012, you need to have a deductible of at least $1,200 for individual coverage or $ 2,400 for family coverage to be eligible to set up an HSA. To see if a plan qualifies, look for the words "Qualifying High Deductible Health Plan" or a reference to "IRC Section 223" on the declaration page of the policy. If this documentation is not available, it is NOT an HSA-qualified plan.

HSA Plans Bring Tax Advantages

One of the main reasons that Health Savings Accounts remain popular is they offer tax benefits. The money you contribute to your savings account can be deducted from your annual income to lower your taxes. You don't even need to itemize deductions because HSA contributions are considered "above the line" deductions.

In 2012, the maximum annual contribution that an individual can make is $ 3,100. Families, on the other hand, are allowed a maximum annual HSA contribution of $6,250. Once you reach 55, you are allowed to begin contributing an additional $1,000 each year.

You can use your HSA dollars to pay for qualified medical care expenses tax-free. Qualified health care services include dental and vision care and even acupuncture. If you use your HSA funds for other purposes, there will be a 20-percent tax penalty if you are under 65. Once you reach 65, you can use the money for any purpose at all without incurring a penalty. However, you still need to pay taxes on the amount that you withdraw.

If you start a HSA while you're young, you can let it grow to prepare for your retirement. You can invest HSA funds in stocks, bonds and mutual funds. The balance grows with tax-free interest. Once you become eligible for Medicare, you can no longer fund your HSA.

By Wiley Long - President, HSA for America - The nation's leading independent health insurance agency specializing in individual and family HSA plans that works with a Health Savings Account.

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American National Insurance - 4:30 PM

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