Hospital Confinement Insurance / Hospital Indemnity Insurance
When a sudden injury happens or illness affects your health, the medical bills start coming in. On average, hospital costs can range from $9,000 to $23,000 or even higher if the condition is more serious. These numbers can significantly damper one's finances, and the last thing you need when recovering from surgery or an injury is stressing over pilling medical bills.
That's why currently, in the midst of the COVID-19 virus outbreak, hospital confinement insurance is becoming increasingly popular. It can help mitigate the costly effects of the hospital stay.
In today's article, we will cover everything about hospital confinement insurance - from what it is and what it covers to how to find the best hospital indemnity insurance plans.
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What is Hospital Confinement Insurance?
Hospital confinement insurance or as many know it – hospital indemnity insurance is a limited benefit policy designed to help you cover medical costs that aren’t covered by health insurance. As its name suggests, it’s a plan that will pay you benefits when you are confined to a hospital.
Although many often confuse it with health insurance or think that it is part of health insurance, hospital confinement is a separate type of insurance policy most commonly used to pay out-of-pocket medical costs. Hospital indemnity insurance doesn’t meet the minimum essential coverage under the Affordable Care Act and as such, it can’t be considered as health insurance.
Why You Need Hospital Confinement Insurance
When a sudden injury, illness or condition strikes, a trip to the hospital can leave you and your family in deep financial debt. If you have health insurance, it will provide coverage for most medical costs and you may think your financial troubles are taken care of.
However, operations and recovery periods are often accompanied by other out-of-pocket costs such as co-payments, doctor’s appointments, inpatient services and similar costs that can put a strain on your budget as much as the regular hospital costs. Sometimes medical costs outside the regular ones can get to thousands of dollars, money not everyone has in their savings account.
Hospital Confinement Insurance is what helps in this situation and provides you with either a lump sum or coverage of some costs that are included in your hospital insurance plan. Having health insurance coverage will give you peace of mind and allow you to focus on your recovery without worrying about finances and debt.
How Hospital Indemnity Insurance Works
As we just mentioned above, hospital indemnity insurance provides coverage of costs outside of the regular medical bills. If you become ill or injured, you can file a claim to activate your hospital indemnity insurance policy.
Depending on the agreement you made with your insurance provider, your hospital confinement insurance policy will either give you a lump sum you (or whoever the policyholder is) can use or provide regular benefits for certain types of costs.
What type of costs are covered by hospital confinement indemnity insurance?
Every hospital confinement indemnity insurance policy is different and regulates different types of costs. In general, hospital indemnity provides coverage for:
- Hospital admission
- Inpatient services
- Outpatient surgery
- Doctor’s appointments
- Diagnostic tests
- Emergency room treatment
- Daily hospital confinement
- Intensive Care Unit confinement
- Rehabilitation Services
A major advantage of hospital indemnity insurance is that you don’t have to use the benefits you receive for these, or any type of specific costs in general.
Filing a Claim
If you are confined in a hospital due to an illness, injury or a worsened health condition, you can use your hospital confinement insurance to cover the costs during your stay and recovery. Each company plan has different benefits and exclusions.
To file a claim, you need to fill out the form provided by your insurance provider and submit it along with copies of all receipts that resulted from your trip to the hospital. After you do this, you will receive a check stating the fixed amount specified by your plan. Once you file a claim, the process to receive your benefits is relatively fast. It takes only around 10 business days for your claim to get approved. Each company varies on time.
The benefits of your Hospital Indemnity insurance are paid directly to the policyholder, not the health care provider. This is one of the main advantages of hospital insurance because due to the direct payment, the time between filing a claim and receiving the benefits is significantly shortened.
Advantages of Hospital Confinement Insurance Coverage
- Pays for costs not covered by health insurance
- Benefits that are directly payable to the policyholder, not to hospitals
- You can use the benefits for any purpose if you want, not only for medical costs
- You can get benefits for the entire family
- Clearly stated benefits, so you can know the amount you would receive
FAQ
Who is eligible to get hospital indemnity insurance?
Depending on your insurance policy, you, your spouse and children can all be covered under your Hospital Indemnity Insurance plan.
For what costs can I use my hospital insurance benefits?
You can use your insurance benefits as you see fit, regardless if they are medical or not. Pay you monthly costs, utility bills, medical bills, college fees or any other thing you need the money for.
Who receives the benefits?
The benefits of your Hospital Indemnity insurance are paid directly to the policyholder. This is one of the main advantages of hospital insurance because due to the direct payment, the time between filing a claim and receiving the benefits is significantly shortened.
Do I need additional coverage if I already have health insurance at work?
While having health insurance through your employer is a major plus, hospital costs after an injury or an illness beyond the health insurance can be difficult to cover. This is where hospital confinement insurance steps in and helps you cover all costs not paid by your medical insurance.