Colorado Springs Dermatologist Dr. Reagan Anderson
Video Transcript
All right, so here’s another daily do from your friendly local dermatologist!
So, let me give you a brief overview of how insurance works and we’re talking about commercial insurance here. So you sign up for an insurance plan, you pay a monthly premium whether or not you get any medical services, that’s just your fee. It’s like a country-club fee. If you don’t go to the Country Club, well, they’re still charging you every month for it whether you use the services or not. Then there’s this concept of deductibles and a lot of people don’t really understand deductibles, but a deductible means that there’s a certain amount of money, it used to be about a thousand dollars., now they’re about five to ten thousand dollars and you have to spend that amount of money before your insurance kicks in. So if you have a thousand dollar deductible and you go see your provider, your doctor, and they charge, you know a thousand and one dollars, then a thousand dollars comes out of your pocket and your provider will send one dollar to the insurance company for the contract to start kicking in. Before that deductible is paid your insurance, for the most part, doesn’t cover anything. Unless your contract says something different but most contracts are that way. You pay your monthly premium, whether you use services or not, then when you need services It’s all out of your pocket to pay for those up until your deductible. After your deductible then insurance kicks in per contract. Now if you don’t understand these basic concepts, you could be hit with huge medical bills. Medical bankruptcy is the number one cause of bankruptcy in the United States of America. It’s a huge topic. So when you have medical bills that you can’t pay it’s the number one cause of bankruptcy. Guys, please understand your insurance contract and please understand that your provider. we are not the broker of that insurance contract. Your insurance contract is between you and your insurance. Whether that’s Cigna or Blue Cross or fill-in-the-blank, kaiser, whoever. We are outside that triangle. Now I very much understand that oftentimes when you have questions you can’t get a hold of your insurance company to get any sort of satisfactory answers. So what you do is you ask us, the provider who did the services, to explain why you have to pay so much money. So we become the brokers of an insurance contract that we have nothing to do with. We have our own contract with insurance, but that does not mean we’re your brokers. Now I break my back to try to explain to you your insurance contracts as best I can but I’m a third, outside party who’s not an expert in your individual contract. So please, when you’re looking at these concepts of which insurance to get, which private insurance to get, please make sure you understand the details, please understand what the terms are, please understand what you can and can’t afford, please understand your individual health now and project it into the future so that you can see your future needs and last, please get involved. Let your congressman, let your senator know the struggles you’re having. You can let them know the good things, too. I’m sure they want to hear the good stuff as well, but if our politicians do not hear accurate information from their constituents, nothing will ever change.
Because Dermatologists treat more than just skin cancer!
