Thursday, April 7, 2016

Consumer Education Key for Health Insurance Marketplace Success

It appears that those residing in the state of Texas who have bought their healthcare coverage through the health insurance marketplace do not have as much understanding of certain terms as those who have medical insurance through their employer or through Medicaid or Medicare, in accordance to a study completed by the Episcopal Health Foundation (EHF) and Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.


The outcomes from the study indicate that the number Texans who bought individual health plans through the health insurance marketplace have risen 78% from the year 2013 to 2015. When it comes to the Affordable Care Act’s federal health insurance exchange, 1.3 million Texans gained coverage through these means.


Nonetheless, the study discovered that those who bought individual health policies through the health insurance marketplace had more trouble understanding simple insurance terms such as premiums, deductibles, and co-payments. For example, only one out of  four poll takers with employer-sponsored health insurance did not understand the term “maximum out-of-pocket expenses” while more than 42% of Texans who had individual health plans had trouble understanding the concept.


More significantly, the research discovered that those who bought individual health plans through the federal or state exchanges had more difficulty understanding how to utilize their coverage plans.

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