If you are a visitor to the United States, and your home country’s healthcare doesn’t work on private insurance, you may be confused with all the talk of visitor health insurance. What’s more, you’re probably wondering what all the different terms mean. We briefly looked at what deductibles are in an earlier post.
The deductible is the amount that you will pay before the insurance company benefits start kicking in. This is done primarily so that you can take care of minor expenses yourself. Remember that the presence of the deductible decreases the premium amount payable.
The other term that you might come across is co-insurance. This is typically something you will see in regular health insurance plans, and not as much in visitors medical insurance. Many insurance plans cover the plan holder for a certain percentage of the costs. This can range from 70% to 90%. This means that after the deductible, the amount that is billed will be shared by the insurance company and the plan holder in the ratio that is specified.
The co-insurance amount is also called the out-of-pocket limit or maximum. Some plans feature a co-insurance amount up to a certain benefit amount, after which the insurance company covers the plan holder for 100% of the costs.
