Not Practicing What I Preach…And it Cost Me $5,000!

For those who have followed my articles, I spend a great deal of time talking about aligning employers and employees with the right benefit plans and consultants to optimize the value offered to them. I feel it is a minimum responsibility of me as a healthcare consultant and strategic advisor to pass along the education to my clients, colleagues, and anyone else who is interested.

It has been no surprise to healthcare consumers that the days of $5 copays and $100 deductibles are long gone for 99% of users in the marketplace. These rich plans have often been replaced with deductibles that can be as high as $1,000 – $4,000 for a single individual, followed by an out-of-pocket maximum that exceeds $7,000! If that wasn’t bad enough, double these amounts if you are covering a family. 

Well… due to an unfortunate ACCIDENT, I am personally experiencing how quickly these numbers can be obtained given our very expensive healthcare system. Notice above I mentioned the accident. This was not a planned procedure or lingering diagnosis, but rather an unlucky event that caused me to break a leg playing soccer. This is one of those instances where when someone tells you to “break a leg,” these are not words of encouragement.

My leg injury did not give me ample time to search for lower cost/high-quality providers or consult on appropriate levels of care but rather sent me to the emergency room for surgery to be performed the next day. This injury occurred about six weeks ago, and now the medical bills are starting to show up. 

In several previous blogs, I spoke about the benefits of having an accident insurance policy to accompany your high deductibles just in case something happened. For about $12/month the benefits, in this case, would have helped tremendously. Let’s break down some of the major areas for coverage that a typical accident policy may have helped in this case. For educational purposes, I have taken a sample accident policy to break down the benefits of my specific injury.

Nearly $5,000 in benefits foregone that could have helped me offset much of the healthcare expenses that will be billed in my direction. This is a valuable lesson learned that I encourage you to NOT duplicate!

For additional information on similar policies, please contact me via email at mailto:mcole@miplanners.com