
Ask HN: Health Insurance Plan Translation? - smitty1e
Is there any portal site that aggregates, normalizes and translates U.S. health insurance plan descriptions from the major providers into conversational English?<p>I would pay a subscription fee for such a service.
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quaquaqua1
Your plan usually has a data sheet that distills the most important things but
if you can provide specifics I will be happy to help. You can also call their
customer service, or your employer's broker, for help :)

The premium is what you pay every month for the plan subscription.

Your deductible is the amount you pay before insurance does anything. Some
plans are 0 deductible, 500, 2000 etc.

Then after you fulfill the deductible, your insurance maybe covers 80% or 90%
of expenses. So if you get a $1,000 medical bill, you only pay $100 or $200.

A co-pay is a separate fee you pay to see the doctor. You pay every time you
see the doc.

Out of pocket max is the maximum amount you pay in a year. So if it is
$12,000, and you get a huge $500,000 medical bill, you will only pay $12,000.

Good luck!

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smitty1e
I'm interested in standardized formatting across plans and providers, without
having to deal with the wait queue.

Also, in/out of network costs, health care savings account details, and of
other minutia.

I can't believe there isn't any demand for such a service, yet there is a
strange dearth of products in the market for a purportedly capitalist economy.

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quaquaqua1
I agree, it's definitely not a market with tons of competition. But I think
the amount of information available to the consumer is adequate. It just takes
skill to understand. Most people don't desire to understand it and will just
call some hotline to find out what they owe. If you want to make money of that
industry, you will be competing with the brokers who by law receive 4% of the
premiums paid monthly in the bigger states

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smitty1e
> It just takes skill to understand.

Again, and maybe I'm missing something, but it sure seems like a business
opportunity unmet here.

