Answering your top health insurance questions

1.

Why is health insurance important?

Health insurance helps pay for medical care and medications, which can vary widely in cost. Even if you’re relatively healthy, you don’t want to skip the financial protection that health insurance provides. Accidents happen, and health insurance can help protect you from high, unexpected medical costs.

Plus, having a health insurance plan for you and your family members provides access to preventive care and services at little to no out-of-pocket cost for you. Depending on your age, preventive care includes:

• Tests for blood pressure, diabetes, and cholesterol levels
• Screenings for some cancers, like mammograms for breast cancer and colonoscopies for colon cancer
• Annual well-baby and well-child exams up until age 21
• Screenings for pregnant people
• Routine vaccinations against diseases like measles, polio, meningitis, HPV or chicken pox
• Annual flu and pneumonia shots

2.

What does health insurance cover?

Health insurance covers a wide range of medical expenses, from basic doctor visits to longer hospital stays, plus prescription drugs and durable medical equipment. Every health insurance plan has different coverage for things like mental health care, inpatient and outpatient services, chiropractic and dental care, so be sure to check your plan details before getting care.

Another thing to consider when choosing a health insurance plan is what your health plan doesn’t cover. Most plans will not cover elective or cosmetic procedures, beauty treatments and services or prescriptions determined as investigational or experimental.

3.

How do I get health insurance?

There are several different ways you can get your health insurance. You may have employer-sponsored coverage through your job or your spouse or partner’s job, or if you’re under the age of 26, you can still be on your parent’s health insurance plan. You may also receive health insurance through a government program like Medicare or Medicaid.

If none of the above options apply to you, then you likely have an individual and family plan. These plans can cover just you or your spouse and kids. Individual and family plans are purchased from a private health insurance provider, like Wellmark, through the federal Health Insurance Marketplace.

Need to find an individual and family health plan? Check out our Iowa and South Dakota plan options and enroll online or call a Wellmark-certified agent to help you find a plan that fits your needs and budget.

4.

When is Open Enrollment for health insurance?

When it comes to questions to ask about health insurance, this is one of the most important answers to know. Though there are several different ways to get health insurance, there is generally only one time to get it and that’s during Open Enrollment.

Open Enrollment usually happens at the end of the year (but may happen at a different time if you have coverage through an employer) and is the one time when you can update your health insurance coverage, like selecting a new plan or re-enrolling in your current plan (which you’ll need to do each year). If you have a Wellmark individual and family plan, Open Enrollment typically begins Nov. 1 and ends Jan. 15.

However, you can also make changes to your health insurance plan if you experience a qualifying life event during what is called a Special Enrollment Period. Qualifying life events include:

• Getting married or divorced
• Adding a new dependent child to your family
• Moving to a new state
• Losing other coverage (like employer-sponsored coverage or aging out of your parents’ plan)
• Policyholder death

Special Enrollment Periods are only open for a limited time, and if you miss that window you may have to wait until the next Open Enrollment Period to get coverage. You can generally cancel your health insurance coverage at any time, but you may not want to do that unless you have other coverage lined up.