2nd Trimester
Switching Insurance While Pregnant
My husband just got a job after being unemployed for 5 months. My husband and son have an individual policy and I am covered under COBRA from my husband's past employer.
Anyways, he is going to be starting benefits soon with his new job. Does anybody know how switching insurance works during the middle of the pregnancy? I assume I have to start all over with the deductible and such. The bummer is that the COBRA I am on has SUPER good coverage...
Just looking for a little advice. Thanks!
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Re: Switching Insurance While Pregnant
True. But that will have not effect on your deductible with the new plan, you will still have to pay it. But, because it is the end of the year, your deductible will reset in January anyway, so just try to get your effective date for the new insurance for jan 1st if possible.
Not necessarily, this will depend on the contract of coverage. My husband's insurance is July-June not Jan-Dec- so ours would not reset in Jan.
You could remain on cobra if you want and then just join on his benefits during open enrollment (depending on when that is). Also, once you drop COBRA coverage (regardless of when you do it, even if it isn't during open enrollment) you would still have the option to join his coverage whenever as long as you provided to his employer that you are currently without benefits, they must pick you up by law. The choice is yours to remain on COBRA and decline you DH's new benefits but I am going to venture to guess it will cost you a heck of a lot less to switch to his new benefits than to pay the premium for his old insurance, unless it was particularly awesome and his new benefits suck.
That is the thing- I pay around $250 a month for a premium, where it would be $120.00 a month on his new insurance BUT my COBRA deductable is only $1500 compared to $4,000.
I know that with individual plans it's different and it may vary by state. We live in Ga. We were going to switch insurance. What we found out for individual plans is that yes, pregnancy is not considered a pre-existing condition and as long as there are no gaps you will still be covered for doctor's appts. However, there is a pregnancy rider that says that the insurance will pay for doctor's visits but they will not pay for delivery. And delivery is the most expensive part. So we decided to stay on COBRA. Well, COBRA doesn't last forever and it stopped 18months after I lost my job. Well that didn't work for this pregnancy. Fortunately, I'm in nursing school and there is insurance offered and included in my tuition. It's a group plan and there is no pregnancy rider and they will cover everything for pregnancy.
My guess is that switching from group plan to group plan is different than switching individual plans. I don't think there are as many complications with group insurance as there are with individual insurance.
Either way, insurance companies suck.
I am going through this right now, and not to scare you, but it has been a bit of a nightmare. My biggest concern with the new insurance was making sure that all visits and services were billed to the old insurance individually, and not "lumped together" in the global charge - beacuse the new insuracne will not pay for things that occurred while insured with another company. I have been asking my doctor's office for a MONTH to look into that for me and haven't gotten a reply AT ALL from them. Nice. I realize my problem lays with the actual doctor's office I go to, but the problem seems to be universal when switching - getting the right things billed to the right insurance company.