Health Insurance – Ordering to save Money

Because different services have different co-insurance percentages, you can often save a few dollars by ordering the submission of claims to your health insurer.

Example: You have a $1,000 with 20% co-insurance for medical care and 30% for prescriptions. You incur $1,000 in medical expenses and $1,000 in prescription bills.

Example 1: Submit medical expenses before the prescriptions. You pay $1,000 towards your deductible and $300 towards your prescriptions.

Example 2: Submit the prescriptions first. You pay $1,000 towards your deductible and $200 towards your medical expenses. In this case, ordering saves you $100 in after tax dollars.

General Rule of Thumb: Any Non-Generic, Non-Formulary drug expenses should be submitted first. Although you will get stuck paying 100% of the charges, you avoid paying the typical 40-50% co-pay they have.