What to Look For While Choosing the Best Student Health Insurance Plan

Being a student in US demands a health insurance plan due to multiple reasons. One of them is the law many US states have: it states that at a certain age, a collegian can’t be health insurance dependent on her family’s plan. Though the risk of students having diseases and ailments is less but accidents are one of the areas where students tend to be vulnerable. Spreading of viruses in college campuses is another area of concern. This is where choosing a student health insurance plan becomes imperative.
It sounds very difficult to choose the best health insurance plan for students, but it becomes rather easy if some points are taken care of. In fact, the young age and low health risk factor of students means that there would be lower premium for health insurance policies. This premium could be further lowered by raising health insurance deductibles.
Most of the schools offer student health insurance plans and some of them even make them mandatory. At the same time, students can also get these health insurance plans from insurance companies individually.
While picking the best student health insurance plan, it is advisable that you get multiple quotes so that you can compare them according to your specific needs. After gathering some plans, decide the most important factor that a health insurance plan should have for you. This could be premium, deductible or the type of covered benefits provided by the particular plan depending upon your conditions. Compromising a good cover for some dollars is never suggested.
Specifically starting with the lowest premium plan, you should compare it with the next least expensive health insurance plan in your collection. Why the difference? Why the premium is less in one case than the other? Does it have higher deductible or a higher coinsurance percentage or what else?
It is important to notice that health insurance rates are based on risk factors. So if you are willing to pay higher deductible, which means lesser responsibility on the insurance company, you will have to incur lower premium. In case of a major injury of illness, this deductible will be paid out of your own pocket.
To understand it better, consider a simple case of two health insurance plans. Consider that the cheapest premium plan requires $500 less to be paid per annum as compared to the other one. On the flip side, the deductible to be paid is $1200. Which one would be costlier? In case of a major illness or injury, the one with higher deductible would be costlier to you instead of the one where you have to pay lower premium.
To determine more comfortably on this issue, just decide what is your out-of-pocket medical expense? If you feel that getting a higher deductible can be covered with this money, you should consider going for lower premium health insurance plan. If not, picking up a higher premium plan would make a better choice.
If you are not able to decide what your out-of-pocket medical expense should be because you do not have a condition that requires regular medication or check-up, you can consider a plan that is more designed to protect you against a catastrophic illness.
There are student health insurance plans that offer low co-payment for office visits. But the plans are often more expensive than a different medical plan that has a higher co-payment for office visits. It does not make sense to pay an increased premium to save a few dollars on an office visit a couple of times per year if all other items of the plans are similar and offer same benefits.
While choosing a student health insurance plan, a point to consider is the network of physician, in addition to limits on office visits, maximum dollar coverage provided on certain benefits, and exclusions and limitations.
At the end, it can be summarized that less expensive student health insurance plan is not always the best suited. Comparing different plans on various issues should mark the ideal approach.