These days, an increasing number of affordable family HMO insurance options require that you pay an annual deductible. Deductibles are the amount of out-of-pocket expense that you must incur before the family health insurance provider begins to pay a portion of the rest. For example, if you have a plan with a $1,000 deductible and a family member needs to be hospitalized at a cost of $10,000, your family health insurance will only cover a percentage of the remaining $9,000. The exact split depends on the co-insurance percentage specified in your policy.
Much of the time, a family health insurance plan will not count primary care doctor visits or other preventative care towards the deductible. Instead, you have a certain co-payment that must be paid on a per-visit basis.
Fortunately, you have a choice in deductibles when selecting your family health insurance coverage. Remember that premiums and deductibles have an inverse relationship: the higher the deductible, the lower the premium. You can get a family HMO deductible for as little as $500 or as much as $5,000.
