California health insurance - Short term health insurance - Blue Cross Blue Shield Short Term

Blue Cross Blue Shield Short Term Health Insurance

UPDATE: California banned all short term health insurance plans eff 9/1/2018.

In California we now only have OneShare health sharing plans for true short term.

You can quote OneShare plans here.

Learn about Health Sharing plans for short term health here.

Notes on health sharing plans:

Coverage can start midnight following enrollment
We can cancel month to month with blocks of coverage up to 11 months
The rates quoted are the best available on the market
Short term works best for injury/illness but does not cover pre-x conditions
OneShare does not decline based on health

There is no cost for our services!

Health sharing plans are not health insurance! You can also get ACA (Covered Ca) plans effective the 1st of the month following enrollment (depending on rules - check with us). Get your Covered Ca quote here.

Quote and online application available here:

Information below is for States that still have short term health carrier options.

It should be the perfect match.

Short term health insurance is very popular now due to open enrollment restrictions.

Blue Shield of California is now 2nd in market share for California coverage.

Anthem Blue Cross is 3rd.

How do we get short term health insurance through Blue Cross or Blue Shield of California?

They both used to offer such a plan.

And they were very popular.

First, Anthem Blue Cross pulled their short term plan.

Then, Blue Shield pulled their short term health plan from the market but we do have a workaround.

Most importantly, while other carriers have left the short term market or re-filed their plans to meet new requirements, this IHC plan with Blue Cross Blue Shield WAS the only legitimate temporary health plan available.

Can you get Blue Cross Blue Shield Partnership with short term health coverage

We used to have a plan through IHC that used the BCBS provider network via a partnership but it has also been pulled from the market.

This leaves us with health sharing plans (can start midnight after enrollment) or ACA plans (can start following 1st of the month).

Quick Landscape of Short term health plans

Here are some basic bullet points for short term coverage:

Coverage can start midnight following enrollment
We can cancel month to month with blocks of coverage up to 3 months (just email written request to cancel to me prior to end of month)
IHC WAS the main short term carrier in California as the other carriers have to re-file to meet 3 month changes. We now have One Share health sharing plans here.
The rates quoted are the best available on the market
Short term works best for injury/illness but does not cover pre-x conditions and is medically underwritten (although simplified issue)
You may still have a penalty for not having ACA coverage (if enforced) with short term plans but not with health sharing

There is no cost for our services!

It's really designed for short periods of time to protect against the big what if.

For example, if you need short term health coverage between jobs.

For this reason, it's very popular these days.

Here are common situations where short term works well:

Waiting periods for new coverage to start
Getting to Open Enrollment or Special Enrollment trigger
Can't afford ACA health plans
Interim periods of travel
Situations where you need to show proof of coverage quickly

Quote and Compare short term health plans with Blue Shield networks

First of all, short term is really geared for catastrophic type coverage.

It's not really made for first dollar coverage such as preventative and RX.

It handles the torn ACL or car accident really well.

You'll notice two things when shopping your Blue Cross Blue Shield partnered short term plans through IHC.

Plan break down

There are three major components to the plans.

Deductible
Coinsurance between deductible and out of pocket max
Out of Pocket Max

These three items affect the pricing along with your area and age.

Let's look at each.

Deductible

This is an amount you will have to pay first before the plan starts to help.

Let's take an example.

We have a $2500 deductible.

This means you'll pay the negotiated PPO rates until you meet that deductible before getting help.

Being in-network (using PPO providers) can save you considerably even before you meet this number however.

Co-insurance

Once you meet your short term plan deductible, you then start paying a percentage of the costs.

For example, let's say we have our $2500 deductible above and a 50% coinsurance.

We have a $3000 bill.

We'll first pay the $2500 deductible. We'll then pay 50% of the remaining $500 or $250.

Total exposure is $2750 (That's the $2500 deductible plus the $250 in co-insurance)

We get these benefits when we stay within the network of doctors and hospitals for covered benefits.

You'll receive an ID card with the link to search for participation MultiPlan doctors with your short term plan approval.

Max out of Pocket

Now, the most important part of a short term health plan.

The Out of Pocket Max.

This basically defines the backend exposure for a very large bill.

With the IHC short term plan, the max out of pocket is in addition to the deductible.

In our example above, let's say we have $20K bill (very easy these days).

If we pick a $5000 max out of pocket, we would first pay the deductible $2500.

We would then pay 50% until we pay another $5000 (max out of pocket).

That's total exposure of $7500.

This would be our exposure for covered benefits, in-network.

Finally, there's a maximum benefit with the plans. This is the max amount that the plan will pay up to but it's very high.

Open heart surgery these days might run $100K+ so the max is more than adequate.

Those are the bullet points for the IHC short term with BCBS partnership.

BCBS Sponsored Short Term Wrap up

So we have a temporary health plan option (up to 3 month blocks) that allows us to use the MultiPlan network of doctors.

This is currently the only legitimate carrier for short term as the other carriers have either pulled their plans or are re-filing to meet the new 3 month window requirement.

Enrollment is all online and though medically underwritten (must qualify based on health), the process is simplified.

Please call 800-320-6269 or email us with any questions. There's no cost for our services!

For further review, check out our master article on short term health insurance coverage and plans.

Short term coverage is a great way to address interim periods of time such as between jobs, waiting for open enrollment, the need for immediate health coverage.