When it comes to routine checkups, and or picking up prescriptions, try visiting a local clinic. For college students, your university clinic is a great option. Chances are that rates will be more competitive for office visits, procedures and for prescription medications.

Don’t let the fact that you have no insurance keep you away from seeking medical care when you need it. Visit a clinic and find the pricing for an office visit for uninsured individuals.

Since getting back into blogging on this site, I’ve become more interested in reading other blogs and one that I recently came across was fivecentnickel.com. Five Cent Nickel is a site that is full of money saving tips, and in my quest to find more and more ways to save money on insurance, I came across a few posts on the site that were similar to topics that I have blogged about in the past, as well as a few topics that were unblogged, but will be blogged about in the future.

If you’re the frugal type, I highly recommend you check out fivecentnickle.com. Here are a few articles that I found on the site that I found to be highly related to our topics here:

• How to Save Money on Health Insurance
• Save on Healthcare: Cheap Immunizations at the Health Department
• Save on Medical Care – Part I
• Save on Medical Care – Part II

I’d just like to say that I’ve already subscribed to their RSS feed, and I’m looking forward to more (and more) money saving tips from Five Cent Nickle.

The only way that the lowest premium will actually be the cheapest and lowest costing health care plan is if you do not go to the doctor or get any prescription drugs during the course of the year. For example (and this is just a rough example to illustrate a point), let’s say that you have a condition requires monthly checkups and medication – 12 doctor visits and 12 prescription drug purchases.

• Plan A – $50/month; $60/doctor visit; $50/prescription
  Assuming the above scenario, this person will spend $160 per month; or $1,920/year
• Plan B – $100/month; $25/doctor visit; $25/prescription
  Assuming the above scenario, this person will spend $$150 per month; or $1,800/year

This was obviously a very simple example, but it goes to show that different plans could have different effects on the amount spent/saved each year.

Choosing an insurance plan is just like choosing a car. There are many models out there, and there is probably one that will be best for you. When comparing insurance plans, you’ll need to consider what you need from a health insurance plan. For example, a single male will not need a plan that covers maternity (in most cases), so by selecting plans that do not offer maternity coverage, he will be able to find health care plans that have lower deductibles with similar options. Just make sure that when you’re comparing plans that you find a plan that doesn’t offer things that you don’t need, becuase in the end, if the plan offers it, you’ll be paying for it.

By increasing your deductible, you’re essentially saying that you’ll pay more whenever an insurance claim is filed. An insurance deductible is the amount of money that you’ll pay toward a claim prior to the insurance money starting to pay, thus, the higher your deductible, the less liability the insurance company carries, which in turn will lower your monthly premium.

Just as with car insurance, increasing your deductible from $500 to $1,000 could actually decrease your monthly premium insurance payment by up to 25%. Before adjusting your deductible, you’ll want to consider the pros and cons, as well as talk to your insurance agent to see if its the right move for you. If you live in an area that has common disasters – floods in the east, ice storms in the northeast, tornadoes in the midwest, earthquakes in California, etc. then increasing your deductible might not be the best idea, unless you’re comfortable covering the extra amount. In each of these disaster prone areas, you will most likely have a separate deductible for each type of disaster, so again, check with your insurance agent.

Yes, it’s true that health insurance is very, very expensive, but however expensive it may be, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you will save money by not having insurance. For example, let’s say that you have an insurance plan that costs you $200 per month ($200 a month is probably about average for a single private insurance plan, outside of potential employer coverage). Annually, you’ll be paying $2,400 for your health care coverage. If for any reason during the course of the year you are hospitalized for any reason, you could end up spending at least $2,400 while being hospitalized. A minor car accident can cost thousands of dollars, and major illnesses, cancer, etc. can cost hundreds of thousands, if not more.

Just keep the big picture in mind when considering health care coverage.

One of the quickest and easiest ways to save money on automobile insurance is to make sure that you are taking advantage of all discount options that your insurance company offers. For example, many insurance companies offer good student discounts and will give as much as a 10% reduction for students who maintain a GPA above a certain level – usually 3.0 to 3.5.

The easiest way to find out if (1) your insurance company offers any discounts and (2) if you qualify for any discounts is to just call your insurance company directly. Get them on the phone and see if they offer any student discounts, good driver discounts, senior discounts, etc.

Every insurance company is different and will offer different discounts, so the best way to make sure you are getting the best rate is to make sure that you call and speak with someone at your insurance company.

We’ve all seen the commercials – smoking is bad for you, smoking kills. If you’re a smoker, you are more likely to have health problems, so of course, the insurance company is going to charge you a higher premium – they’d be idiots not to, because as a smoker, you’re more likely to need medical treatments than a marathon runner.

Other things to keep in mind is drinking alcohol and eating/overeating. Overeating often leads to being overweight, and overweight leads to health problems. Typically obesity can cause a large number of problems, so again, being overweight will cause insurance premiums to rise as well.

I had started this blog awhile back, just as a hobby because I had some random questions that I found answers (the hard way), but since starting the original blog (blogging4insurance.com) I suddenly found that I really didn’t have enough time to write as much as I had originally intended to. Recently, I’ve been trying to start getting back into “blogging”, and with the recent slowdown in the economy, I’ve begun to look for ways to monetize my blog. As you can probably see, I’ve started using Google Adsense after reading Generating Money from Your Site in a Recession.

Since reading that article, I’ve found that there are many ways to monetize websites, however, most of the involve having large amounts of traffic. So now, I’ll be working on both writing and driving traffic to my site in order to help me generate some extra funds. We’ll see how that goes considering after starting my blog, I almost immediately had a 3 month draught.

Wish me luck!

This one might seem like a no-brainer, but more times than not, people will get caught using out-of-network providers rather than in-network coverage due to the fact accidents happen. Sometimes we just need emergency medical coverage.

HMO health care plans will typically require that you stay entirely within the system and anything out of the system will be entirely out-of-pocket. PPO plans will allow you to go out-of-network, but you’ll typically being paying more: an in-network visit might be a flat rate of $25, where an out-of-network visit might be a 50% copay. FFS health plans will let you go anywhere, but if saving money is what you’re looking to do it will be best to “shop around” to find the best prices for the services that you’re looking for. And make sure you don’t just pick a doctor because the price is the lowest, be sure to check qualifications and references as well.