Monday, July 25, 2011

Supplemental Insurance

Supplemental insurance policies are designed to help soften the financial blow should an unexpected accident occur. The money you receive from indemnity policies may be put towards paying co-pays, prescription medication or to use any way you see fit. Additionally, you are not required to report to any money received from an indemnity policy to the IRS as this is medically related. Indemnity policies pay you not the doctor. Major medical pays the doctor. You can assign monetary benefits to the doctor is you so choose.

Personal indemnity policies pay a pre-determined financial benefit for a specified injury. They are broken down into categories such as emergency visits, ambulance use, broken bones, twisted ankles, hospital confinement, etc. Some policies carry an accidental death and dismemberment benefit.

Supplemental DOES NOT compete with your MM insurance. Supplemental insurance marrys well your major medical insurance. Having both ensures you are completely covered. Having the peace of mind knowing your MM insurance will pay your doctor and hospital and your supplemental policy will pay you for your time lost.

Accidents happen. Unintentional injuries are the fifth leading cause of death overall and first among people in age group 1-44. On average, there are 13 unintentional-injury deaths and 2700 disabling injuries every hour during the year. Over a third of all hospital emergency department visits are injury related.  No one wakes up in the morning and says, "today I plan on being involved in an accident." Everyone is at risk of injury.

American Family Life Assurance Company i.e AFLAC, offers a Personal Accident Indemnity Plan that adequately covers a variety of accidents both on and off the job. If you are injured on the job, AFLAC does not interfere with workers compensation. This is YOUR insurance not your employers'. Hence, the Personal in the Personal Accident Indemnity Plan. The plan follows you everywhere you go.

To learn more about supplemental insurance policies, you may call or e-mail me or simply go to http://www.aflac.com/ to view the many available policies.

Good health,
Trisha M. Pacenti RN,BSN
http://www.nurseinsagent.com/

Thursday, July 7, 2011

What is HIPAA?

HIPAA~ Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. This act establishes privacy and security standards to protect a patient's health care information. HIPAA was passed by Congress in 1996. The act includes rules covering administrative simplification by making health care delivery more efficient. Portability of medical coverage for preexisting conditions was a key provision of the act as was defining the underwriting process for group medical coverage. Another key area was standardizing the electronic transmission of billing and claims information.

HIPAA privacy regulations require that access to patient information be limited to only those authorized and that only information necessary for a task be available to them. Personal health information must be protected and kept confidential. HIPAA provides for uniformity of rules and regulations on consumer control over health information, ensuring patients understand their privacy rights, ensuring patient's rights to access their medical records and request amendments in response to information they perceive as inaccurate. Failure to comply with HIPAA can result in civil and criminal penalties.

HIPAA now provides for universal access by a patient to review and copy his/her own medical record. So, the next time you go to your physician's office and your given several papers to fill out and sign, one of the papers is the HIPAA form. If your like the many, many people who have never fully read through the HIPAA form and only signed, now you know and have been fully informed.

Good health,
Trisha M. Pacenti RN,BSN
drugstore.com, inc.