If you struggle to afford health insurance OR go without, please read this article in the Asheville Citizen Times:
Currently, health insurance plans bought through the marketplace are being discounted 30-40% compared to last year. Thus if you return to the marketplace, see link below, you could drop your premiums 30-40% for the same exact plan. Plans are currently heavily subsidized and you can enroll or change your plan until Aug 15th when enrollment ends.
How do I get to the marketplace to see what plans are available?
Click this link to find out if you can save on a new plan, or even the plan you have right now:
Why are the plans through the marketplace cheaper?
The plans are subsidized. This means you pay less because they are partially paid for by tax dollars. The amount you pay and the amount that is subsidized is based on your income. So, if you don’t qualify for medicaid you could qualify for a plan through the marketplace and your income will be taken into account when your application is processed, there by giving you a lower, affordable premium.
Why do I want a plan through the marketplace? I can go to any insurance agent.
True you can, and many agents offer ACA compliant plans too, but a plan must be available on the marketplace to be subsidized. You may already have a plan through the marketplace (may be referred to as Obamacare), and I encourage you to return to the website and see if you qualify to pay less for the same plan. You may not have a plan at all or a plan through the marketplace, and you could save a lot of money and afford an ACA compliant plan.
Why is important that a plan is ACA compliant?
ACA compliant plans pay 100% for important screening tests and preventative care. This means they cover screening colonoscopies, mammograms, physicals, and more. Screening tests are done before you are sick so we can catch things like cancer early. This improves your chance of survival.
Dr. Brown why would you recommend insurance when your practice does not bill insurance?
At Ashewell, we seek to provide better, more transparent and more affordable care. We provide primary care to ALL for a low monthly fee, often for less than your cell phone. We provide benefits such as discounted meds, labs and imaging all with the goal of helping you to afford the things that keep you healthy or return you to health when you find yourself unwell. Our hippocratic oath includes, do no financial harm. Thus, we think everyone should have health insurance for large healthcare expenditures such as specialty care, branded expensive medications, hospitalizations and surgeries. No one should go without health care or suffer financial harm do to a health problem. In this country, that means you need health insurance.
So why doesn’t Ashewell take insurance?
If we did, we couldn’t afford to provide primary care for everyone at one low monthly fee. Medical billing is so expensive that it drains the resources of medical practices. The current health insurance reimbursement arrangement, makes it impossible to properly account for what doctor’s office will be paid and when. You can’t run a business like that, not well anyway. We have employees, families and patients that count on us. We take this seriously, so we make it simple. We want you to have insurance so you get the care you need beyond the walls of our office, but you just don’t need it for primary care in our office.