Finding the healthcare plan that is right for you!

Because my husband is self-employed, we've been paying the full health insurance premiums for over 2 years now and it isn't cheap! Since we just had our 3rd child we are sitting down and going over our health insurance plans to see if there is a way to save money by switching plans (maybe eliminating maternity??)

So when Twitter Moms told me about this article  entitled "Be Smart about your Health" it was perfect timing for me and my family to read through and it had some great information that I plan on using as we navigate through what I find to be an overwhelming and sometimes confusing task.

I'll try to recap some tips that I found to be extremely helpful:
1. The most obvious is: what is important to your family. Do you travel a lot and need more out of network benefits? Do you get a lot of prescriptions so you want a cheaper prescription plan?
2. What can you afford?  Make sure you can really afford the premiums and realize they may go up. I was so shocked when 2 months after getting our new plan it went up!!! When you are on a private plan it will go up every year.
3. There are wellness incentives. Check with your plan to see, but some of them offer savings for gym memberships!
4. Some plans cover online visits! I never even knew there was such a thing as online visits-this could be a major time saver if you are comfortable with technology enough to utilize it.
5. Often times you can get your prescription drugs cheaper online delivered to your door than at a local store. This would also be a time saver if you are on a prescription drug regularly you can cut your bill by 1/3 and not even have to go to the store ( you just have to be able to plan ahead)

I'm still overwhelmed by the cost of health care these days, but I'm really excited to try out some of these ideas above. I'm DEFINITELY going to be checking out the wellness incentive to see if I can get a discount to a gym membership so I can finally shed some of these post-baby pounds. Bonus-some of the gyms even have free childcare while you workout!


Full Disclosure:
I wrote this blog post while participating in the TwitterMoms and Aetna blogging program, making me eligible to get a $30 Target gift card. For more information on how you can participate, click here.”