Salt Lake Health Insurance Coverage Plans Policies

If you live in Salt Lake City or the surrounding valley and don't receive your insurance through your employer, what do you need to know about to make an informed decision on purchasing insurance? Do you have certain doctors that you go to and do you know what network they are in? Do you know what hospitals are available? Do you know what insurance companies offer coverage here? Let's see if we can answer these questions here.    

Doctors     

The biggest concern about your current doctor, if you choose to get coverage through a new insurance company, is he in the network for that provider. There are three main networks in use that your doctor might be in. There is the network for Intermountain Healthcare (IHC) that SelectHealth is the sole provider for. There is also the HumanaOne network, which obviously HumanaOne uses. There is the Great West network that Assurant and Altius use, and the BlueCross network that Regence uses. You will find that most doctors in Salt Lake City and County will use on of these networks.     

Hospitals     

Depending on where you live Salt Lake, usually determines what hospital that you go to. But did you know that some hospitals here will only take one carrier on an in-network basis? Any IHC facility, like Intermountain Medical Center in Murray will only allow for SelectHealth to be in network. That means that you should check and not assume that your hospital is in network for your insurance. You may get stuck a larger than expected bill after your hospital stay. But even if you live near an IHC facility, there is always another network hospital nearby, like St Mark's in Murray which will take all networks. And remember, there are over 13 hospitals in and around Salt Lake City, so you have many choices.     

Insurance Companies     

There are five main providers of health insurance here. Some actually are based here and some have offices here. We have mentioned them already in the doctor section, but we will mention them again with a little more specificity.  

SelectHealth is based in Salt Lake City and is the sole in network provider for all Intermountain Healthcare facilities. And seeing that mostly SelectHealth is an HMO, you will find that some doctors/facilities will only take SelectHealth.    

HumanaOne has offices here and has a large national network that can come in handy if you travel outside of Salt Lake and Utah often.  

Assurant is a national carrier as well, but has some of the strongest maternity coverage available here. Where other carriers have maternity deductibles as high as $7,500, Assurant has one as low as $2,500, which is much lower than everyone else's.  

Regence BCBS has main offices in Salt Lake and is the largest healthcare provider in the Intermountain West. They use the BlueCross BlueShield network here and nationally.  

Altius is also based in Salt Lake City and uses a large national network as well.     

Independent Health Insurance Agent     

I cannot stress enough how important it is to use an independent health insurance agent that is knowledgeable in different issues we have with networks and facilities. There are so many health insurance companies and so many plans, how could you possibly know what good coverage from the bad is without really digging in and knowing how each one operates. That is what a good agent will do. They are experts in finding you the right plan at the right. They also know of alternative ways that you my not have ever thought of in getting you insurance that doesn't skimp on coverage but does skimp on price.      

So as you can see, there is much to know about your options when shopping for new coverage here in Salt Lake. Make sure you get informed before you move forward.  

Dan Hauser is an independent insurance broker in Utah and runs one the most popular health insurance sites there. You can learn more about the healthcare and health insurance options available in Salt Lake City at Health Insurance.