What you need to know about securing health insurance.

<div class="block">Open enrollment is just around the corner for those who need health insurance. Lawrence Sprung, founder of Mitlin Financial, joined &#39;Stretching Your Dollar&#39; to talk run down the basics of the 2023 open enrollment season.</div>

Stretching Your Dollar

Stretching Your Dollar: What to Know About Open Enrollment

Open enrollment for 2024 starts on November 1st. So there's really no better time than right now to start figuring out what it means for you and planning ahead and joining me now is Lawrence Sprung, Founder of Midland Financial Lawrence. It's great to have you today. Open enrollment on the horizon, as I mentioned, how long will this period last? Well, that's, uh, you know, by employer uh discretion in terms of how long they'll give their employees, but typically 2 to 4 weeks, uh is usually the allotted time frame who's impacted by open enrollment. So anybody who has an employer that they have corporate benefits, whether that's health insurance, life insurance 401k, this gives them an opportunity to make those changes, make those adjustments that they may need to make for the coming year. How should people start preparing for open enrollment to make sure that they choose the best option? Yeah, that's a difficult one and sometimes very challenging to choose the quote unquote best one. But you want to take a look at how your benefits worked for you over the past year and see where there might have been some shortcomings for you and if there have been some shortcoming, identify other options that may exist to fill in those shortcomings for you if you're an individual or you and your family, if you're covering your entire family with those benefits. So if, and when people update their plans, Lawrence, when does that new coverage start? January 1 typically, you know, assuming that they're on a calendar year, right? Uh This segment we're talking about people who are gonna start their benefits. January 1, if they're on a different cycle, their open enrollment would be normally 2 to 4 weeks whenever that cycle is. But for most, most part, most companies start January 1. So the decisions they're making today or in November will affect their benefits starting January 1 for the 2024 calendar year. If people want to get more information to help them navigate this process, where would you guide them to? So there's a lot of resources, you know, typically your employer, they will not give you specific directions on what to pick or how to pick. But there are usually a lot of informational tools, websites, links that you can link out and learn more. Uh The best display is if you're in a specific health company's health care plan, and you need more information about the plan you're in or the plan you're considering going to the easiest. And best thing is to contact them directly and walk through what that change in plan would look like for you. And I know you mentioned obviously when deciding which plan might be right for you to also look back on the past year, consider what worked and what didn't any other tips for making that selection which will last you in most cases, as you said, a calendar year. Yeah, so I mean, specifically health insurance is the biggest expense typically and what you want to look at there is, you know, really it's a pay, you're gonna pay one way or the other. It's either a pay now or pay later, meaning that you're either gonna pay now in the insurance coverage or you're gonna pay later with your copas, your deductible, et cetera. So if you felt like you did not see the doctor that and you were in a plan that you had high premiums, you may wanna switch to one that has lower premiums that still gives you some flexibility. But at the same time, you're not gonna, you're gonna outlay more for those copas and those visits. So you have to look at that and then, you know, one key piece of information is if you have an HSA, a high deductible uh plan, you wanna make sure that you open up an eight because that will allow you to put away money's pre tax and pay some of those expenses with money before it's taxed. Ok. So maybe on an HSA, I think that's really good. Advice. What about contacting your health care provider with questions to make sure that they do in fact qualify. I know it can be different across offices for some of the services that you anticipate you might need. Yeah, very important thing. Like you know, if you know that there are specific, you have a specific medical condition or something that you need to address uh in the coming year or it's a chronic illness and you felt like you paid a lot out of pocket over the course of the year. It may behoove you to contact the health provider and tell them what your condition is and see if there is a plan within the options being presented to you that would support you and provide better coverage than you currently have. That's certainly something you could always do and it's very helpful. Ok, final tips, Lawrence as open enrollment is soon approaching. Yeah, I think finally, you know, you want to make sure if you're going to make a switch. I think one of the biggest hiccups we see people make is they switch from one plan to another, even within the same network, even in the same health care company. And then they find out that their doctor is not in the network for that specific plan they move to. It's important use the online finder tools to make sure that your new professionals are going to be available through you but do not use that as the gospel. It's always best to call your medical practitioner and make sure that they accept the plan and the network that you're thinking of moving to. All right, Lauren Sprung. Thanks so much for the tips. We appreciate it.