When you take out a health insurance policy, you get into a legal and formally enforceable agreement with the company that is providing the insurance policy to you. The agreement entails a health plan that helps with the payment of certain medical care and services. This ensures that the insured person doesn’t have to pay all the medical cost that they otherwise would if they didn’t have insurance cover. How healthcare for expatriates in China works is basically the same although you might find a few variations depending on the insurance company, location, and country among other factors. Let us take a look at how health insurance works in general.
How much you pay
When you buy an insurance policy, your insurance company will require you to start paying a premium. A premium is the amount of money that you pay to the insurance company on a monthly basis. You can look at it as the cost you pay for the health plan you have. In most cases, health insurance plans come with a deductible. A deductible refers to the amount of money that your insurance company needs you to pay in order for the plan to start working. If you pay the deductible, you will start to share medical bills with your plan. For instance, if you have a medical bill of 1000, the health insurance company may pay 800, which is equivalent to 80% of the bill while you pay the remaining 20%. This is what is referred to as coinsurance in insurance terms.
There are certain medical bills that insurance companies usually pay in full and a good example of such costs is preventive care. If you go for a medical procedure or service that is meant to prevent the occurrence of a certain medical condition in future, your insurance company will pay the bill in full so that you wouldn’t have to pay anything out of your pocket.
Consider how much health care you use when choosing an insurance policy
