Insurance Basics: Home

Protections for New York Consumers: Understanding Your Out-of-Pocket Costs

By law, consumers living in New York State have certain protections when shopping for and using their health insurance. Your insurer must provide up-to-date information about who is in your network.

Protections for New York Consumers: Understanding Your Out-of-Pocket Costs
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
Insured and Self-Insured Plans

Employers offer health coverage to their workers in several ways. Some buy an “off the shelf” plan from a commercial insurance company.

Vision Coverage for Children and Adults

Most health plans cover medically necessary visits to an eye doctor. Sometimes they cover routine eye exams too, but to get complete vision coverage you may have to go to other sources. This article will tell you about those sources.

Looking Up Costs for Behavioral Health Services

To look up the estimated costs for behavioral health services (including mental health and alcohol and/or drug services), go to our home page, fairhealthconsumer.org, and click on Medical and Hospital Costs.

What You Need to Know about Medicare

If you’re 65 or older, figuring out how Medicare works and when to sign up can be challenging. It can be hard to know what kind of coverage you’ll need. There are Part A, Part B, Part D, Medicare Advantage plans (Part C) and Medigap. There also are other complex terms to know. This article will cover the basics of what you need to know about Medicare.