California Health Care

Health insurance plays an essential role in keeping you and — if you enroll in a family plan — your spouse and children safe. If you’re interested in purchasing a family health insurance plan, it’s a good idea to see who qualifies so you can ensure everyone has the coverage they need. This guide will answer some common questions about group health insurance plans and who is eligible.

A dependent is anyone who qualifies as an additional person on your health insurance plan. Your dependents can access all of your health plan benefits and use them as if they were the policyholder.

A beneficiary is typically the primary policyholder of the insurance plan and receives health care benefits. The term “beneficiary” can extend to other individuals who receive benefits, like your spouse or child.

Besides the main benefit of coverage for minor and major medical needs, adding a dependent to your insurance plan allows you to take advantage of many tax deductions and credits.

Anyone who qual...

Health insurance is critical in ensuring that your medical bills are covered when you’re sick or injured. The application process for some health plans can be complex, so some people let their plans renew automatically at the end of the active period. The fundamental question is whether auto-renewal is good or bad for you. To answer this question, we will look at the pros and cons of automatic health insurance renewal.

Do you have to renew your health insurance every year personally? The answer is no. You can let your health insurance plan automatically renew at the end of each period. However, as you’ll discover in the next sections, auto renewal will make you miss some benefits.

When does health insurance renew? State-run exchanges and HealthCare.gov process auto-renewals on or around December 16. The open enrollment period, which is the yearly period when individuals can enroll in a Marketplace health insurance plan, runs from November 1 to January 15 in most states. If you have...

Life is anything but constant —  job and lifestyle transitions occur all the time, and income changes often accompany them. Knowing when and how to report income changes to insurance providers helps determine your eligibility for coverage and savings.

When you enroll in Covered California, you need to report any changes, like earnings adjustments, in 30 days. Learn more about the reporting process so you can continue receiving quality health coverage and avoid financial penalties for noncompliance.

Updating your Medi-Cal application with your new income is essential for compliance and ensures better benefits for you. Some perks of reporting your change include:

Between busy work schedules and family commitments, finding the time to tackle everything on your to-do list can be challenging. However, reporting your income change to Covered California is a task you need to prioritize. Forgetting to submit your income change could result in penalties such as:

Aside from indicating a...

Couples may each have their own health insurance plan, or, in some cases, only one of the spouses may have a plan. In either case, sometimes it makes sense for one partner to add their spouse to their plan. Adding your spouse to your health insurance plan is not difficult. In this guide for adding your spouse to a health insurance plan, you’ll learn how to do this stress-free.

Different scenarios require different approaches when you want to add your spouse to your health plan. Overall, there are three main options you can use to add your spouse:

You can add your spouse during open enrollment, which occurs annually from November 1 to January 15. During this period, you can sign up for insurance or update your existing plan. If you have employer coverage, your employer sets the open enrollment dates. Adding your spouse is one of the changes you can make during this enrollment period. However, you don’t always have to wait for the open enrollment period to add your spouse.

Certain life...

Does the idea of affordable insurance to keep your family’s smiles healthy make you grin? If so, you may be interested in finding an orthodontic insurance policy.

Orthodontic coverage is insurance that pays for orthodontic health care. Orthodontia includes diagnosis, prevention and treatment of dental and facial irregularities to align teeth and jaws correctly. As an extension of a broader dental plan, orthodontic insurance provides full or partial coverage of orthodontic health care for qualifying clients.

You can access orthodontic insurance as an individual or as part of a larger family or business package. Solutions offered through your company will typically be the most affordable, but they may not provide a wide range of options.

Each policy is unique, so it’s important to check what a policy covers before making a decision. Some specific items that orthodontic insurance can cover include:

While healthy, properly aligned teeth and jaws are important to our well-being, these tre...

If you need prompt medical attention, you have two main options — an urgent care center or the emergency room. The former is definitely the more affordable option, but in what situations is it applicable, and does health insurance cover these visits?

Urgent care centers typically treat patients with health insurance and those without, but the costs may vary significantly. While certain centers offer discounted rates to uninsured individuals, the amounts may still be high, depending on the treatment.

Urgent care is typically covered by insurance, but there are some factors to consider. When seeking an appropriate center, look for a facility that falls into your provider’s network. Some plans, like the preferred provider organization (PPO), typically allow you to receive treatment at a center outside of their network, but you may pay a significantly higher fee. Other plans, like the exclusive provider organization (EPO), only provide coverage for in-network facilities, except in an...

Coinsurance, like deductibles and co-pays, are different types of out-of-pocket costs you may need to pay for health care services. Understanding these different terms and how to calculate them is essential for understanding your health coverage and getting the right costs ready in advance. Coinsurance is a beneficial cost-sharing option that allows you to share medical bills with insurance providers, making your health care costs more manageable.

This guide explores how coinsurance works, how it differs from other cost-sharing requirements like copayments and deductibles and how to calculate coinsurance costs. It also provides helpful examples of the different types your insurance provider might offer, where you can find your coinsurance structure and what to enquire about.

Coinsurance is when you pay for a percentage of health costs on your own. Your insurance plan will pay the other portion of medical costs after you meet the deductible. The deductible is the initial amount your...

For years, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) individuals could not receive discounts through Covered California. The latest health insurance news ensures that those eligible for DACA will be able to do so as of November 1st, 2024.

Learn more about this update and how to enroll with the Health for California team today.

DACA is a policy that is a lifeline for many undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children. Specifically, this policy helps eligible individuals avoid deportation and receive a Social Security number, work permit and driver’s license to live and work legally in the States. DACA approvals are valid for two years at a time, with renewals for ongoing security and employment possibilities.

It is important to note that DACA differs from the traditional green card and its permanent citizenship. Instead, DACA acts as a temporary reprieve for several benefits, including status protection, valid IDs, education access, work authorization and...

Choosing health insurance that meets your needs is one of the most important decisions. One option is catastrophic health insurance. This medical coverage is for people under the age of 30 and adults who meet hardship exemption requirements.

Catastrophic health insurance is limited to eligible individuals. If you do qualify, understanding the pros and cons can help you decide if it’s the right health insurance for you.

Catastrophic health insurance is an individual health insurance plan with high deductibles but low monthly premiums. These health plans cover you in worst-case scenarios like major medical diagnoses or significant injuries.

Before the Affordable Care Act (ACA) came into effect, the term “catastrophic coverage” was broad. People used it loosely to describe any health plan with high deductibles and limited coverage for routine medical needs. With ACA’s new health plan structures, catastrophic health insurance is a specific type of individual health plan not avail...

Everyone has to have health insurance now that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is in place, but that doesn’t mean health care has gotten any less confusing. We tend to go with what we know or what we’ve always had when it comes to insurance coverage, but the reality is that you have options.

In California, health insurance plan options primarily include Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) and Preferred Provider Organization (PPO). Other options include Exclusive Provider Organization (EPO) and Point-of-Service (POS) insurance plans, which are growing in popularity in California.

While all of these plans can provide the coverage you need, it’s essential to understand each option and compare them. Failing to grasp the differences between HMO, PPO, EPO and POS plans could lead to significant unexpected costs and disappointment in switching doctors due to a change in insurance coverage. These plans provide coverage, but there are substantial differences in how the...