Responsible High and Research Deductible Plans

High deductible health insurance is a great way to keep premium costs down for families who are willing to take a little extra responsibility with their health care. Using the current Health Savings Account (HSA) qualified plans in conjunction with actually building up an account to match the chosen deductible, keeps money in the hands of the consumer and stimulates an awareness of the actual costs of health care.

Consumers should learn to ask price questions of their doctor, research average costs for procedures, crunch the numbers on their own plans, and become intimately acquainted with high deductible HSA qualified health plans. As an example, our son had an outpatient procedure done this morning at a surgical center. We chose to have the procedure done there instead of at the Children's Hospital after a brief discussion with the surgeon who was performing the operation.

I simply asked him where would it be the cheapest for us if we were willing to self-pay? Too often, otherwise high functioning adults become mute in the presence of medical personnel and just flow with the system.

A brief departure from standard protocol led to this decision for us that may have saved us several thousand dollars, and all it took was one question that had a limited downside of potential awkwardness with the doctor. We were forced to discover the actual cost of the procedure instead of depending on a third-party payer to take care of it for us.

Standard costs for most procedures can be found by looking into the CPT (Current Procedural Terminology) guides online which can be found with a simple Google search of "CPT Codes". Warning, these costs are defined in terms of Medicare valued payments, which are significantly lower than what hospitals and clinics actually charge.

The reason to use them is to get an understanding of where the break even or limited profit point is for the ever elusive medical billing world, which obviously gives some bargaining power with the billing departments.

Another site that is helpful for getting a list of costs from hospitals in any given area is  Though they are trying to sell health insurance, it is an effective place to begin to understand average and above average costs, and hopefully begin to make informed decisions about where to have a procedure done.

Consumers of health insurance can be terrified by the looming costs of medical care and will often avoid the high deductible plans without crunching the numbers. A healthy family of three can have a $10,000 single family deductible and pay $200 per month compared to paying over $600 per month for a $1000 individual deductible with doctor office copay visits included.

This family could save around $5000 dollars per year and place it in an HSA to provided for doctor visits and the occasional emergency room visit or surgery. The high deductible plans will still give the benefit of the insurance company's re-pricing, taking a little bite out of the bills that are sure to come each year. The key is to tuck some money away specifically for health care each month, and the advantages come tax time are a great benefit that makes the whole package a little more attractive.

For better or worse, we spend money every year on health care. Sometimes it is on the front end with eating well and exercising sufficiently. Sometime it is on a sneak attack, like my son's congenital trigger finger that was just discovered last week.

Sometimes it is on the back-end, like stress related issues that bring some big-ticket surgeries or medication dependence. Self-insuring just doesn't seem to work when the possibility of the "big one" rests on our minds.

Being protected from the catastrophic "what ifs" is often worth the price. Paying huge amounts of money to an insurance company to protect every little medical problem is one way to approach insurance, but it is a guaranteed cost as opposed to a potential cost.

Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research & Educational Trust, two nonprofit organizations that focus on health policy issues state in a study released in September of this year that the average total premium paid for family coverage is $13, 770. Sitting with a Doctor and broaching the subject of costs with them, increasingly looks like a better option for those shelling out over $1,100 per month.

Healthcare reform will be debated, challenged and tweaked for years to come, but for those looking for solutions right now to decrease their own personal health care costs, high deductible HSA qualified plans combined with responsible research that holds doctors and hospitals responsible for keeping costs under control is an option that works.

Learning to ask questions and compare prices will give you the confidence to act quickly when the real emergencies hit and will save lots of money in the long run. It's your health care and its worth taking control of it.