What To Do If You Can’t Get Health Insurance

If you live in a country which does not have a national health service (NHS) that provides you with free health care, or you would prefer to have private medical treatment, then there is a good chance that you need health insurance.

Of course, you don’t have to have health insurance, but if you don’t, then you better have some very deep pockets to pay for any medical treatment that you might require. As not only can medical costs be extremely high, they have also been steadily increasing year after year.

Why You Need To Be Insured

If you speak to anyone who has been in the insurance business for some time, you are bound to hear horror stories about families who have been unable to receive medical coverage, and then later when they required medical treatment, they almost went bankrupt because of their medical bills.

For example, one family member had health insurance but subsequently lost it due to a job change. Their new job did not provide any group coverage, and they were unable to insure their son because he had a condition which required constant medical attention. In order to treat their son, the family then had to pay for his treatment out of their own savings.

The good news is that eventually their son recovered from his condition, but by the time the treatments were over, the family was in complete financial ruin.

Since you can never predict when you are going to require medical treatment, what sort of treatment you will require and the duration of that treatment, not having medical insurance can expose you to a vast amount of uninsured risk.

If you are single, you may want to live with this risk and try your luck, hoping that you will never get sick or require medical treatment of any kind. But if you have a family, taking such a risk not only puts you in danger, but also your whole family.

The purpose of having health insurance therefore, is to insure you against any medical related expenses that you incur as a result of going to a doctor or hospital because of being injured or suffering from disease. A good health care plan will minimize your exposure to suffering from uninsured financial losses, and thus will help to ensure that you still have money left in your pocket after you have been treated.

Furthermore, some studies have shown that those with adequate medical coverage are more likely to receive better quality treatment, and receive more effective but more expensive drugs. As a result, having health insurance is therefore vital for not only safeguarding your finances, but also for safeguarding your health.

What Can You Do If You Are Denied Health Insurance?

For the large majority of people, applying for medical insurance is a relatively straightforward affair, providing that is, you know what type of coverage you need and are familiar with the different coverage options available.

Some people however, find that when they do apply for a health care plan that their application is denied, and as a result, they are left facing potentially large uninsured losses should they ever become sick or injured and require medical treatment.

Below you will find some suggestions on what to do if you can’t get health insurance. Some of these suggestions may seem quite dramatic, but if they can give you some sort of coverage and save you from financial ruin, then they should be something that you take under serious consideration, especially if you are currently unable to get health insurance from any other means.

1) Group Plan Coverage

Although not every employer offers group plan medical coverage to their employees, they may be willing to start a group plan policy if you ask them.

However, you probably won’t get very far if you are the only person who asks for it, so it is important that you try to get the support of as many of your co-workers as possible. The more people who request a group health plan, the stronger the pressure will be on your employer to form one.

If you are successful in starting a group health plan, your insurer is required by law to provide health insurance for all members in that group regardless of their current state of health.

This can therefore be an excellent way to get health insurance coverage if you have been rejected elsewhere, although in some cases, you may find that this coverage does not cover you for the first 12 months or until you have been with your employer for a predetermined amount of time.

Making sure you are covered

If you are creating a new policy, be sure to think carefully about the types of risks that you would like to insure yourself against. This is important for two reasons.

The first, is that having an adequate level of coverage means that you will minimize your risk of suffering from uninsured losses, and that the claims you do make, will be honored by your insurer.

Second, is that by having the right type of coverage, you can save money on your insurance costs because your policy will only be covering you against losses which represent a real risk to you.

This is something that can be quite easily overlooked when it comes to group plan health insurance, as often, people are so grateful to be receiving some sort of coverage that they do not bother to look at whether they actually need all the coverage their policy is providing them with. So even though they do benefit from being insured, ultimately, they end up paying more for something they don’t really need.

Of course, it is important to remember that what you don’t need, someone else might need. So you won’t always be able to trim down your policy as much as you would like. But this is still something that is worth looking into and trying to do whenever possible.

2) Find A Job That Will Insure You

If your current job does not provide you with group medical coverage that extends to yourself and your family, then you may want to consider finding another job that does.

Even if that job pays you less than what you are currently getting, if it can give you and your family health insurance coverage then this could end up saving you a lot of money in the long run.

However, this is usually more of a long term solution and not something that you can expect to benefit from immediately, as most employers will only offer you group coverage after you have been working with them for a certain period of time.

3) Major Medical Insurance

Some parts of the country offer a major medical insurance plan, also known as catastrophic individual major medical coverage, for certain types of people. Find out if such a plan is offered where you live, and if it is, sign up as soon as you can.

An alternative option that you may want to consider is to get a mini medical plan instead. Although this won’t insure you for major medical expenses, such as those resulting from treatment for serious diseases like cancer or heart disease, it will insure you against smaller expenses such as doctor visits, lab test fees and hospitalization fees.

A mini-medical plan however, will still leave you exposed to uninsured loses, but this is certainly preferable than having no coverage at all.

4) Make Lifestyle Changes

Some insurance companies will deny individuals insurance because they are deemed to be high risk medically. In other words, they think that due to your condition or your lifestyle, you are likely to cost them a lot in the claims you make and so they would prefer not to take that sort of risk with you.

Whilst there are some conditions which you may not be able to do anything about, some conditions can be entirely under your control.

For example, if you are obese or a smoker who is middle aged, then you may find it difficult to get health insurance. Even if you can get insured, you will most likely have to pay very high premiums as a result of your current level of health and lifestyle.

However, by stopping smoking, losing weight and improving your overall level of health, you stand a much better chance of being accepted into a health insurance program. The same applies if you are an alcoholic or drug user, as by improving your lifestyle you can dramatically increase your chances of being accepted for health insurance.

Once you feel that you have improved your level of health and fitness, undergo a health risk appraisal and give the results to your insurance company to prove that you are in fact healthier than you were before.

Remember, all medical insurers deal with risk. So the lower your risk of suffering from an adverse medical condition, such as a heart attack, the more likely that insurer will be to insure you.

5) Get Low Cost Medical Care

If the reason you don’t have health insurance is because you can’t afford it, then there may be ways of getting cheaper medical coverage that might not have occurred to you.

For example, some communities offer medical care programs through Social Services or religious charities.

You will be required to pay a small amount of money and you will usually only be able to receive treatment at designated medical facilities, but importantly, you will receive medical care when you or your family needs it and it won’t cost you very much or get you into debt.

Some communities may even offer free medical care at certain clinics. So if you currently can’t afford medical care, have a look to see what you local community has on offer as an alternative to a regular health insurance policy.