I received a call from my child’s school. It was the nurse and my son needed to be picked up early. When I got to the office I found him looking miserable, sitting there with his head down at the table. He had spiked a fever and was complaining of ear pain.
Ear pain and ear infections were nothing new to him but this was the first time it had suddenly come on while at school. He was very sick so I called his doctor to get an appointment. Since it was late in the day, they had nothing available and said I could try back in the morning or take him to the emergency room if it were an emergency.
I decided not to go to the emergency room and instead found an urgent care facility for children. This facility was much smaller than and emergency room and they specialized in children. We were in and out in a little over an hour, prescription in hand, and told to follow up with our pediatrician.
My son was better within a couple of days and we followed up with his pediatrician two weeks later, just as planned. What we weren’t planning for was an enormous bill in the mail for his visit to the urgent care facility. I was in shock. We were told we owed several hundred dollars because our insurance company did not cover the cost of urgent care visits without a referral from our primary doctor.
Needless to say, at that point, I DID NOT know very much about my family’s healthcare costs and decided to find out exactly what all those foreign words meant, and what EXACTLY was covered, immediately.
*this is a sponsored post on behalf of UnitedHealthcare. All opinions expressed in this article are my own.*
How well do you know your family’s Healthcare costs?
I have teamed up with UnitedHealthcare so that you don’t make the same mistake I did. How well do you know your family’s Healthcare costs? Take this quiz to see if you are up to speed.
Another area that I found my self seriously lacking when it comes to knowing my family’s healthcare costs and insurance benefits is in the terminology. I’ve heard terms like, claim and health savings account but honestly did not know what exactly they meant. What is the difference between a claim and a fee schedule? What does HSA stand for? Take this quiz to see how you compare and learn additional information on each of these terms.
For each quiz you complete, not only do you learn valuable information about your healthcare costs but you will also be entered to a sweepstakes for a $100 weekly drawing or $500 monthly drawing. From March 1-31st, 2017 you will have three opportunities to be entered.
The sweepstakes opportunities are:
1.Cost Quiz 123: this is a simple, 3 question quiz about how to manage health care costs.
2. Look and Learn: watch this short video about how to avoid cost surprises after enrolling in a health care plan. After watching it, you will be prompted to answer one question that pertains to the video.
3. Perfect Match: this is a memory/concentration game with generic health care terms, which helps you understand the basic cost terminology that you may come across in your health care plan.
Make sure you know your family’s healthcare costs before you make a mistake like I did and find yourself paying out of pocket for something that could have been covered. If I had been informed and done my research I would have made sure to find the correct facility ahead of time to take my son when he was very sick. If you are still having trouble understanding the coverages, costs, and benefits speak with your insurance provider and check out UnitedHealthcare’s very informative video with additional information.
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