Unless you’re covered by a “qualified” (for an HSA)) High Deductible Health Plan, your insurance ID card probably lists the co-pays for various services. If you got a new ID card in January, those probably changed.
So, let’s review.
For office visits, you might have a “split co-pay;” e.g, $40 when seeing your primary care physician (PCP) and $75 (or more) for a specialist. Experts tell us primary care physicians are best suited to handle most of our care, so the split co-pay is designed to steer you to your PCP when possible.
Your drug co-pays will most likely range from $10 (Tier 1 or generic) to as high as 25% for Tier 4 specialty meds.
This one gets my attention; $550 for an Emergency Room visit. Yikes! That’s a lot of money. Compare that to Urgent Care ($100). Get the message?
Just last week, a client was told to put an ER co-pay on a credit card or she would be denied care.
Really?
Fortunately, in this case, our client had set up a Section 125 Flexible Spending Account (FSA) and was able to pay her co-pay with her debit card.
Will you be as well prepared?
