What should I pay attention to when buying medical insurance after American immigrants live in the United States?

American family medical insurance is usually provided by schools or companies, which belongs to group insurance and is more favorable than individual insurance. If there is no work unit to provide medical insurance, you can also buy it yourself in the market or from the government website, including basic preventive examination and prenatal examination. If you meet the requirements, you will be prompted whether you are eligible for Medicaid.

Data you need to pay attention to when purchasing American insurance:

1. Deductible: the part that needs to be paid by itself before the insurance starts to pay the expenses, which is generally recalculated every year.

2. Co-payment (fixed fee): After deducting the out-of-pocket payment, the co-payment for different diseases may be different, which needs to be carefully understood.

3. Maximum out-of-pocket expenses: maximum out-of-pocket expenses per year.

4. Maximum benefit: the maximum amount that the insurance company is willing to pay.

5. About the payment of Vison (vision, including glasses) and RX/ pharmacy (prescription drugs).

6. Some insurances will be divided into in-network (hospitals within the insurance network) and out-of-network (hospitals outside the insurance network), and the medical expenses paid will be different. You need to know whether the insurance you buy has a designated hospital or clinic. If it is far from your home, it is not recommended to consider it.

7. Maximum out-of-pocket expenses: maximum out-of-pocket expenses per year.

About American family doctors

Generally speaking, every American will choose a family doctor, PCP for short. Generally choose internal medicine or family medicine. IM's target customers are adults, while FM's target customers cover a wider age range. Since childhood, the baby's family doctor naturally chose pediatrics.

PCP is a family doctor who is responsible for regular physical examination and treatment of common ailments every year. If there is a disease that PCP can't handle, they will refer the patient to a specialist. It should be noted here that many insurances have restrictions on seeing a specialist, and you need to get a referral from PCP to pay for medical expenses. If you go to see an expert directly without a referral, you may be refused payment for abusing resources.

Of course, there are special circumstances. For example, women generally do not need to refer to obstetrics and gynecology.

At present, there are fewer and fewer independent private clinics in the United States, and most doctors will choose to practice in some large clinics/medical groups. One advantage of the medical group is that doctors in the same discipline will have more choices. If a doctor is absent, other doctors can be arranged to replace him immediately. Another advantage is that your medical records will be stored in the outpatient network, and new doctors can also learn the detailed information of patients from the previous medical records.

★ About the process of seeing a doctor in the United States

In the United States, you need to make an appointment first, and the process of not making an appointment will be more troublesome.