Understanding your health benefits may soon get easier

Posted February, 10 2012 by arianne

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) yesterday released it’s final regulations regarding the information that health insurance companies will have to give to consumers about their plans in order to allow them to compare plans and make informed choices.  Basically, it’s a simple, easy-to-understand way to explain to folks what is covered and what is not.

It’s amazing that it’s 2012 and insurance companies are just now having to this kind of common-sense stuff.  And, apparently, keeping things simple is hard – insurance industry groups had actually asked to have this requirement postponed until 2014!

One big bummer about all this though, is that – at this point – insurance companies are not required to include the monthly premium price of their plans on these info sheets.  But, hopefully this will change soon.

To learn more, check out yeserday’s article from Kaiser Health News, titled “HHS Unveils Requirements For Consumer Insurance Labels.”