Understanding your Health Insurance Plan / Medical Insurance Plan

 

In this article, I have outlined some important factors about health insurance plan

INTRODUCTION

This article is divided into two parts

One - what to know and understand

Two - being well informed and making an informed decision

WHAT TO KNOW AND UNDERSTAND

Before you decide on a plan, you will have to understand what services are covered, the premium rate, the deductibles, co-insurance, out of pocket expenses, and co-pays. This information will help you to avoid being surprised when you receive your bill

Deductible - this is the amount of money you will have to pay out of your own pocket, before your insurance company starts paying for your medical expenses

Co-insurance - this is the percentage of the cost of your medical expenses that you will have to pay from your own pocket, after you have paid the deductibles

Out-of-pocket maximum - this is the maximum amount of money that you will have to pay for your medical expenses in a year. Once you reach your out-of-pocket maximum, your insurance company will pay for all of your covered medical expenses for the rest of the year (NOTE - the insurance company will pay only for those medical expenses which are covered under the plan)

Co-pays - these are the fixed amounts that you will have to pay for certain medical services, like Doctor's visits or prescription drugs

Covered benefits - these are those medical services which are covered by your health insurance plan

Excluded benefits - these are those medical services that are not covered by your health insurance plan

It is a good practice to track your medical expenses. This will help you to stay up-to-date on your spendings, and make sure you do not exceed your deductible or out-of-pocket maximum

BEING WELL INFORMED AND MAKING AN INFORMED DECISION

While reading your medical insurance policy, make sure you understand everything, and know specifically what is covered and what is not covered under the plan. Wherever required, do not hesitate to ask questions to the medical insurance company for clarification

It is always good to compare the benefits and disadvantages of at least 3 or 4 insurance companies, before making an informed decision. Get quotations from different insurance companies and compare the premium rates, the coverages and features, the deductibles, co-pays, and the out-of-pocket expenses

One more thing that you need to understand about your health insurance coverage is the PLAN TYPE. There are quite a few types of plans, each with its own benefits and features

Some common types are:

Type-1

Health insurance companies which require you to visit a doctor within their network for most of the services. If you visit a doctor outside their network, you will require a referral. Such companies are often known as HMO (Health Maintenance Organization). They usually have low premiums, but higher out-of-pocket expenses

Type-2

Health insurance companies which give you more flexibility to visit a doctor both in and outside their network. No referral is required for visiting a doctor outside their network. Such companies are often known as PPO (Preferred Provider Organization). For such companies, the premiums may be higher, whereas out-of-pocket expenses will be lower

Type-3

Health insurance companies which combine the benefits and features of both HMOs and PPOs. With this kind of a health insurance plan, you can visit Doctors both within and outside their network plan, but you will have to pay more for visiting Doctors outside the network. Referrals may be required for visiting doctors outside their network. Such companies are often known as POS (Point-of-Service). Overall, you may have to pay more for taking insurance coverage from such companies

Once you have gone through all the relevant details of the various health insurance plans, next you will have to consider your own individual needs, your health condition and health needs, your life style, your family situation, and your financial capabilities, before deciding on a suitable health insurance plan. Talk to your family, to your doctor, and also with the insurance provider before taking a final call

All said and done, COST appears to be the most important factor when choosing a suitable health plan. Together with cost, you will also have to consider the coverage and benefits, the network of doctors and hospitals covered, the flexibility of the plan, the costs involved in visiting out-of-network doctors, whether home care expenses are included or not

Hope I have been able to summarise all the important information in this short article. Take your best decision and go for a plan that suits you best

Click on the links below to take a look at these health insurance plans:

Top 5 health insurance companies in India

Best Health Insurance Companies in India

Hospital Medical Records Department - NABH 5th Edition - MRD Processes and Functions

 

This video covers the following topics:-
MRD Scope of Services
MRD Administrative Policies and Protocols

Making Available Patients’ Records and Information

Storage and Retrieval of Medical Records

Archiving or Destroying Medical Records

Maintaining Complete Medical Records

Continual Quality Improvement of MRD

Training Needs of MRD

Patient Registration and Admission Processes in a Hospital - NABH 5th Edition

 

This video outlines the functions and responsibilities of the staff handling Registration and Admission, as per NABH 5th edition

Topics covered in this video:-

Differences Between Registration and Admission

Types of Admissions

Scope of Services of the Department

Scope of Services of the Hospital

Administrative Policies and Protocols

Registration and Admission Processes

General Informed Consent for Treatment

Managing Patients During Non-availability of Beds

Transfer-in and out or Referral of Patients

Estimated Cost of Treatment

Uniform Pricing Policy

Patients’ Feedbacks and Complaints

Differences Between Documents and Records - ISO, NABH, QMS

 

This video outlines some of the important differences between documents and records

Topics covered in this video:-

What is the need for documents

What is the need for Records

Types of check lists

Differences between documents and records

External documents and External records

Reference Motifs - book of patterns

If you are looking for reference motifs for all your art work needs, then this book is just the right one for you. The book is titled "Reference Motifs"

I am Uttia Majumdar. My book has 60 motifs for professionals, students, amateurs, beginners, and anybody who is interested in patterns and motifs. I have given the motifs black and white touch to make the patterns stand out prominently

Wood art, floor art, wall art, ceiling art, textile designing, branding, packaging, rangoli, alpona / alpana

You will find my book on KDP

It is available in Kindle e-book format and Paperback format at the following links

CLICK HERE for Kindle e-book edition

CLICK HERE for Paperback edition

How to Create Link and Hyperlink in MS Word Document - FREE TUTORIAL

This is an AI art created with Blue Willow, it has been used here for representation only

There are two sections in this blog

Creating Bookmarks

Creating Links and Hyperlinks

NOTE - In this blog, the important sections have been circled in RED so that you are able to follow the instructions easily

When we are creating a document that runs into many pages, and in that document we need to link different sections to each other for easy navigation across the document, then it becomes necessary to create links and hyperlinks within the document to move quickly from one section to another

In this blog article I have shown the simplest method of creating LINKS and HYPERLINKS for lengthy MS Word documents

Please read on to find out how

For this, I have first created a fictitious process document for Materials Procurement Department. I have also created a fictitious Table of Context with the section headings and page numbers

For convenience I will call the document “Main Section", and the table of context “Context”

Now I will show you how to link the Table of Context headings to the relevant sections in the document

The process document for Materials Procurement Department

TABLE OF CONTEXT
Serial Numbers	Headings	Page Numbers
1	Introduction	3
2	Objective of the Department	3
3	Scope of Services of the Department	4
4	Administrative Policies and Protocols	6
	4.1      Departmental Organogram	6
	4.2      Working Hours	7
5	Material Procurement Process	8
	5.1      Determining the Need	8

PROCESS DESCRIPTIONS

1. INTRODUCTION

The main function of the materials procurement department is to procure raw materials for the manufacturing processes of the organization

2. OBJECTIVE OF THE DEPARTMENT

Is timely procurement of raw materials, so that the manufacturing processes keep on running smoothly

3. SCOPE OF SERVICES OF THE DEPARTMENT

Receiving requests from the departments

Placing orders with vendors

Inspecting received materials before acceptance

Material rejection

Material acceptance

Receiving offer requests from new vendors

Communicating with new vendors for business possibilities

4. ADMINISTRAIVE POLICIES AND PROTOCOLS

These policies and protocols have been defined and implemented, to bring discipline into the working processes of the department

4.1 Departmental Organogram

4.2 Working Hours

The department works in 3 shifts, namely, day shift, evening shift, night shift

5.  MATERIAL PROCUREMENT PROCESS

The required raw materials are procured from reputed vendors, after thorough scrutiny of the quality

5.1 Determining the Need

The department has a policy of minimum re-order level. Once that level is reached, the department contacts the end-user to determine the volume of the next purchase

NOW THAT THIS SHORT FICTITIOUS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN CREATED, I will show you how you how to create Links and Hyperlinks within the document

Creating LINKS and HYPERLINKS within MS Word document

You can also say, how to hyperlink in word to another page in the same document

Section-1 : Creating Bookmarks

To link and hyperlink, you will have to first create Bookmarks

Remember the following rules

1. To create the Bookmark for a word or a sentence, you will have to first select the word / sentence
2. The Bookmarks cannot be too long, because there is a limitation to the number of characters you can type
3. You should not leave gaps between two words or characters
4. You cannot use special characters in between two words or characters

Creating Bookmarks

I have created Bookmarks for the word "Introduction" in the Table of Context and in the Main Section of the document

STEP-1 : select Introduction from the Table of Context

Step-2 : from the top panel click on Insert, and then click on Links, a drop-down menu will open

In the drop-down menu, you can see three options - Link, Bookmark, Cross reference

Click on Bookmark from the drop-down menu

Step-3 : after clicking on Bookmark, a window will open

Now, in this Window you will have to type the word “Introduction” twice to create the link and the hyperlink. You need to distinguish between the two words by some differentiation mark. For this you can enter the word “Context” next to one word and the word “MainSection” next to the other one

Remember, you should not put any space in between two words or characters when you are creating the Bookmark

First select “Introduction” from the Table of Context and type the word “IntroductionContext” in the Bookmark name bar, and click the Add button (if you want to delete a particular word, select the word and click on “Delete” button)

Then select the word “INTRODUCTION” from the Main Section and type the word “IntroductionMainSection” in the Bookmark name bar, and click the Add button

The Bookmarks for the two words have been created. (Remember that for the hyperlinks to work properly, you will have to first select the word or sentence for which you are creating the link or hyperlink)

In this manner, create the Bookmarks for all the other headings in the Table of Context and the headings in the Main Section of the document

In the below image, you will see that I have created all the Bookmarks to help you understand

NOTE

In some versions of MS-Word, the Bookmarks option may be available on mouse right click. In that case, you will have to select the word for which you want to create the hyperlink, right click your mouse button and select the Bookmark option

Section-2 : Creating Links and Hyperlinks

After creating the Bookmarks, the next step is to create the Links and Hyperlinks

Now I will show you how to hyperlink the two headings to each other

There are two methods in which you can do it

METHOD-1

First select the word “Introduction” from the Table of Context, then

From the top panel click on Insert and then click on Links, from the drop-down menu again click on Link

A window will open

In this window, under Bookmark you will find all the bookmarks that you have created. From here select “IntroductionMainSection” and click on OK to hyperlink the Context to the Main Section

Similarly, now select the word INTRODUCTION from the Main Section

From the top panel click on Insert and then click on Links, from the drop-down menu again click on Link to open the box

in the box, under Bookmark select “IntroductionContext” and click on OK to hyperlink the Main Section to the Context

Now if you will check the word "Introduction" in the Context and the Main Section, you will see that both the words have been highlighted in BLUE. That means, the hyperlinks have been created

You can test the hyperlinks by clicking on them (in some computers, to click on a link, you will have to hold down the Control key and click the mouse button - Ctrl+Click to follow link)

This way, you can hyperlink and cross-hyperlink the Table of Context with the relevant sections in the main part of the document

METHOD-2 (this is the right click method)

In this method, first select the word or sentence you want to hyperlink, then right click the mouse button, a drow-down menu will open. Click Link from the drop-down menu

Here I have selected “Objective of the Department” from the Context, and I am going to link it to the Main Section and vice-versa

After you click on Link, a box will open

In this box, click on Bookmark to open the Bookmark box

From the Bookmark box select the hyperlink that you want, and then click OK twice

I have selected “ObjectiveoftheDeptMainSection” and then clicked OK twice. Now the Context has been linked with the Main Section

Similarly, you can select the words OBJECTIVE OF THE DEPARTMENT from the Main Section

Then right click and select Link from the drop-down menu, from the Bookmark box select the hyperlink “ObjectiveoftheDeptContext” and click OK twice

Now the Main Section has been linked with the Context

Now if you will check the Context and the Main Section, you will see that the words "Objective of the Department" have got highlighted in BLUE. That means, the hyperlinks have been created

You can test the hyperlinks by clicking on them (in some computers, to click on the link, you will have to hold down the Control key and click the mouse button - Ctrl+Click to follow link)

This way, you can hyperlink and cross-hyperlink the Table of Context with relevant sections in the main part of the document, and vice-versa

These links, hyperlinks and cross-hyperlinks are very useful for research scholars, scientists, and other higher studies students. Also professionals who are required to create work related documents will find this blog tutrial very useful