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Hospital Indemnity Insurance
What is Hospital Indemnity Insurance?
When it comes to the health of you and your family, unexpected or long-term hospitalizations should not be a time to worry about medical costs. Hospital indemnity insurance helps by putting recovery first over hospital bills.
Hospital Indemnity Insurance supplements your existing health insurance coverage by helping pay expenses for hospital stays. Depending on the plan, hospital indemnity insurance pays you or your provider benefits to help with the added expenses that may come while you recover. Plans are generally based on the number of days of hospitalization.
Even if your medical insurance covers most of your hospitalization, you can still receive payments from your hospital indemnity insurance plan for extra expenses while recovering.
Hospital indemnity insurance is also called hospitalization insurance or hospital insurance. Depending on the policy, these plans pay you or your provider benefits when you need care requiring a stay in hospital, planned or unplanned, or for other covered medical services.
A stay in a hospital can generate unexpected costs quickly creating a financial burden for individuals. If you want a plan in place to help financially cover these out-of-pocket costs, then a hospital indemnity plan might be the right choice for you.
A hospital indemnity plan may prove beneficial if you or your family:
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Are aging into a time of life where hospitalization is more likely.
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Don’t have savings to help offset hospital expenses.
In general, a hospital indemnity plan is designed to help with managing the financial impact of a hospital stay by offering coverage options.
By using certain providers along with having your plan pay the provider directly, some plans may offer you a discount on covered services.
Benefits are generally paid in a lump sum directly to you or your provider. The amounts are usually fixed and determined by you policy.
How does Hospital Iendemnity Insurance Work?
Generally, you pay monthly premiums for your hospital indemnity insurance plan. If you are admitted to the hospital for an injury or illness, your hospital indemnity plan may pay you or your provider benefits.
You can apply these emergency funds to pay for some of costs not covered by your health insurance plan. Costs not covered by your health insurance plan might include (health insurance deductibles, copays and coinsurance, childcare expenses while you are in the hospital, or cost-of-living expenses as you recover).
Questions To Ask About Hospital Indemnity Coverage
Coverage and cost varies with every hospital indemnity plan. Type of questions to ask so you understand the details of the plan you choose when you enroll include:
If hospitalized, how soon do you receive payments?
Will you receive one lump sum or monthly payments?
How many days of hospitalization are covered?
Does the plan cover your family?
Are there age restrictions for the plan?
Hospital Indemnity Insurance Considerations
Like many supplemental insurance plans, hospital indemnity insurance is typically lower in cost, depending on the plan and coverage. Affordable hospital indemnity plans are worth considering if your existing health insurance plan has limits on hospitalization coverage.
If you are starting a family, a hospitalization indemnity plan can help cover some of the costs of hospital childbirth and post-childbirth hospital stays. Also, as you become older, the potential for hospitalization may increase.
Depending on the plan, benefits may be paid directly to the hospital or other health care facility if an assignment of benefits is made by the policyholder.