Purchasing a travel medical insurance might be a bit difficult, especially if you never had one before. The following article will give you all the necessary information to purchase the right travel medical insurance.
How to use Travel medical insurance?
When to purchase a travel medical insurance?
The best moment to bur Travel medical insurance is before you leave your country and travel. This is why your policy will become effective from the first day you cross the border of your home country.
In case you didn’t have time to do so, or you simply forgot, don’t worry because you can purchase insurance from your travel destination as well. In this way, you are going to be covered for the rest of your trip.
What is the ID card?
After purchasing the travel medical insurance, you will have to download certain documents and among them, there will be your ID card with all necessary information such as your name and ID number, contact information of your insurer, your effective date of coverage, and your international provider network.
It is necessary to have this card with you and show it to the medical institution you visit in case of an injury or illness.
Coverage of the Travel medical insurance
Start date of the coverage
Travel medical insurance starts as soon as you leave your residential country, and it covers only illness or injuries that happened abroad.
In some plans, it might be noticed that the policy is active from the day of departure or one day before. Following, this might cause the coverage will be effective right after you cross the official border of your country.
End date of the coverage
The moment your coverage ends depending on the policy you have. Usually travel medical insurance coverage is not effective as soon as you return to your home country. In some cases, you might add to the policy a certain benefit period and be covered until 11:59 pm EST on the end date.
In case you had been injured or ill abroad, and your condition requires certain treatments after you come back home, in that case, policy coverage should be still valid and active. However, most of the insurance companies are limiting this option for up to 90 days, with the proper contract clausal.
Billing and Payments – What is reimbursement?
Travel medical insurance billing is usually different from general health insurance billing. In case you have to visit a doctor or take certain medical treatments at home, your health insurance will receive a bill from the medical institution that you have visited for the reasons mentioned above.
Following, after the approval, the insurance company will transfer the money directly to the service provider and you will not need to take care of anything.
In the case of travel medical insurance, the situation is a bit different. Considering that the insurance companies are not able to be in contact with every medical institution around the world, in case you have to visit a doctor abroad while on the trip, most likely you will have to pay for the service.
With a receive from that service provider, you will go to your insurance company, submit the documents and wait for the reimbursement of the costs. This is a common practice around the world and nothing unusual.
Pre-authorization of the medical procedures
It is highly recommended to be careful before accepting a medical procedure abroad because certain insurance companies require authorization.
That means you have to contact the insurance company and ask for permission to take a required procedure, or you could be required to pay up to 50% of total costs. To avoid these costs, make sure you get familiar with the procedures who are necessary to be authorized by the insurance provider.
How to find adequate medical institution abroad?
As soon as you purchase a travel medical insurance, it is advisable to check with the insurance company or service provider which health facilities are a good option in case you get sick or injured abroad.
Qualities of the medical institution can vary from very low to very high, and it would save you some time in searching for the proper one while abroad.