Are you about to lose your health insurance?

Losing your health insurance is a terrifying experience.

After my most recent trip to the hospital, I started treating my mailbox like it was packed with venomous snakes. I’d pretend that I forgot to check it, or lie to myself about doing it tomorrow. And even when I did work up the guts to approach it, the key would tremble in my hand like a divining rod—shuddering in response to the bill I knew rested just beyond that small, rusty door. 

...And that was with insurance covering most of the costs.

But with over 47 million Americans lacking health insurance, how can we avoid being charged thousands of dollars for medical procedures, check-ups, and emergencies?

 

Know your rights as a health insurance holder. Review your policy and don’t choose your doctor arbitrarily, because whether you’re on a PPO or HMO plan, you must conform to the regulations set down by your insurance company. Familiarizing yourself with your health insurance policy will spare you a lot of time lost chasing approval for procedures, visits, and tests, and your wallet will feel a little healthier when you aren’t dishing out cash for out-of-network issues.

But what if you don’t have any insurance at all? Or what if your insurance policy gets canceled?

 

Cancellation of health insurance policies can be a serious issue—especially if you’re suffering from a chronic condition that needs regular or expensive treatment. And almost all cancellations occur when an insurance company decides that you have either omitted or misrepresented something in your initial insurance application. Forgetting to note something as minimal as childhood asthma could mean that when you get rectal cancer at 50, your provider might refuse to pay for it—simply because of a completely unrelated inaccuracy in your paperwork.

However, your insurance cannot be canceled arbitrarily, and some states prevent providers from canceling insurance if the insured individual has HIV, mental dementia, or a mental illness. Your provider is also unable to cancel your policy if your omission or misrepresentation is discovered after 2 years have passed since the date of your application.

If you feel that your insurance has been unfairly canceled, please contact a health insurance lawyer. You could save yourself thousands of dollars in medical bills that would otherwise be spent on uninsured procedures and medications.

By Kate Beall