Insurance Basics: Home

Choosing a Health Plan

Your employer may offer more than one health plan, or you may be shopping for your own individual plan.

Choosing a Health Plan
Flexible Spending Plans

Flexible spending plans let you set aside money from your paycheck. You can use it to pay for care before meeting your deductible, and for copays and coinsurance afterward.

Flexible Spending Plans
If Your Plan Doesn't Pay (Appealing a Reimbursement Decision)

Suppose your insurer won´t pay for a healthcare service, or pays less than you had expected. You have the right to “appeal”, or ask for your case to be formally reconsidered.

Receiving Care from an Accountable Care Organization

An Accountable Care Organization (ACO) is a group of doctors or hospitals who have agreed to work together to coordinate and improve their patients´ care

Experimental Treatments and Clinical Trials

Most health plans don´t cover treatments they regard as “experimental”. Sometimes, they may deny a claim for such a treatment.

Getting Care from a Medical Home

A medical home is a type of doctor´s practice that uses a team to focus on the “whole person”. It is sometimes called a patient-centered medical home (PCMH).