Save Money on Your Healthcare in 2009

photo credit: wilhei55

Open enrollment season is approaching, and soon employees will be able to investigate their healthcare cover options for 2009. With that in mind, here are a few tips for keeping your costs down in the coming year.

Don’t Ignore your Options

Many people ignore the fact—or just aren’t aware—that they have the option to choose their healthcare plan. If you didn’t know, or you haven’t bothered in the past to check out your options, make this year the one that you break the habit. If you have options, it’s never a good idea to ignore them—you could end up saving money simply by choosing a new plan.

This is particularly important if you’ve started work for a new employer recently. Some companies assume that employees who don’t sign up for a plan don’t want employer-sponsored healthcare. If you’re in this situation unawares, you could end up uninsured.

Don’t Rule out Higher Co-Pay Plans

If your medical needs are low and you don’t visit a doctor often, you might find a high co-pay plan is a good bet. It’s entirely dependent on your situation, of course, and for families or for people with chronic medical conditions, a low co-pay plan is usually best.

Consider a Flexible Spending Account

By letting you use pre-tax dollars to cover your healthcare needs, flexible spending accounts can provide some great benefits. At a tax rate of 25%, for example, you’ll save $500 by putting aside $2,000 in an FSA. The money can be used for any medical-related expense, even the routine ones such as over-the-counter medications.

However, there are pitfalls. The most significant is that you must specify in advance how much money you want to set aside for healthcare for the entire coming year. If you don’t use what you’ve set aside, you lose the money. That means it can be difficult to cover yourself for emergencies, simply because you can’t predict when those will happen.

Investigate Preventative Healthcare Incentives

Some companies ask their employees to fill out optional health questionnaires, and then offer medical advice on how employees can reduce their health risks. Depending on where you work, filling out the questionnaire and taking the advice can net you discounts on premium costs.

Tags: 2009, healthcare, new year, open enrollment, save money

This entry was posted on Monday, October 27th, 2008 at 12:17 pm and is filed under Consumer Driven Healthcare, Health Care Costs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.