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Health insurance is the need of the hour in this highly uncertain and erratic world. With natural disasters, terror attacks, accidents and various other unforeseen events on a rise, having insurance to cover your medical bills is the least you can do for yourself and your family.

In the United States one can find as many as five different kinds of health insurance available. These are as follows:

1. Traditional health insurance: In these you pay a premium every month to the insurance company. In case of an accident or other need you are supposed to have a deductible amount that is supposed to be paid by you. The rest of the bill is taken care of by the insurance company.
2. Preferred provider organizations or PPOs: These claim to cover all your bills. The catch however is that you need to stay within the preferred circle of hospitals as well as doctors. Thus you have a “preferred provider” list to select from. This very same clause makes it hard for you if you are unable to get close to the preferred provider in the time of need. In case you do go outside the provider for any particular treatment you have to pay more. This helps the company regulate the costs as well as premiums.
3. Point-of-service plans or POS: These are similar to PPOs and only differ in the terms that whenever you need to consult a specialist, your primary care physician has to refer you to one.
4. Health management organizations or HMOs: These are a mixture of PPOs and POS plans only in a stricter sense. This can be seen if you look at the list of preferred physicians by HMOs. You will find that their list includes a lot lesser institutions than the PPOs. If you do choose to go to someone not in the list you will not be covered anymore. You also need a referral here like the POS plans in order to visit a specialist. But the great advantage of this is the low premium that you end up paying.
5. Health savings accounts or HSAs: You deposit money in an interest gaining and not taxable account that is only to be used in times of medical needs. If you combine the account with an economical, high-deductible insurance plan you are deemed to get the most benefits. This account is intended to cover your deductible in case of it being higher than what you can afford.

The health savings accounts are the most recent addition in this list. All these plans can make it a bit confusing for the people to choose which one is the best for them. This makes it imperative to thoroughly research all of these and then make an informed decision. Also you should not shy away from asking any questions that you may have regarding a particular plan.  Plans like PPOs are a result of insurance companies looking at various ways of making cost effective plans due to higher life expectancy.

All you need to keep in mind is that there are a lot of plans around that are built to give you least benefits at the most costs and that makes it important to carefully check and cross check the insurance cover you and your family go for.