Ok I'm leaving my parents coverage in a few months and am scouting health insurance companies....thing is...I have no clue what they are talking about!!! The thing I am most confused about is the deductible...if a plan has a $1000 deductible does that mean for a normal doctors visit I first have to pay $1000? (ok please dont laugh at me, I have no clue) Or do I just pay a copay (it says $30 copay for doc visits) If I do just pay a copay then what is the $1000 for?? is that for hospital visits? Lol, I dont have $1000 bucks to go to the gyno! ;-) Somebody help me, I am going out of my mind!

The deductible is the amount you pay up front before the insurance kicks in ( it is a yearly amount ). The co pay is the amount you pay once the insurance kicks in. For example :
Hospital bill $1500.00 ....your deductible is met and you pay 30 % of the remaining $500 ...you pay a total of $1150.

I had the same question. I don't get insurance through work b/c it's $175 a month, which is high IMO. I'm a 34 year old female with no health problems at all and physically fit. I go to the gyno once a year and might go to the GP once a year. If I got health insurance with a $3500 deductible(only $80 a month), I'd have to spend $3500 in doctor's visits a year before the insurance and co-pays would kick in? That seems ridiculous to me. There is NO way I would ever hit that or even $1000 deductible a year with my 2 doctor's visits. So what's the point of health insurance for a single, healthy person? Yeah, I might get hit by a bus, but what are the chances? I was under the impression that doctor's visits were covered without the deductible(my Dr. visit is $150, I would pay the $25 co-pay and the insurance would pay the rest). Now if I was hospitalized for appendicitis, for example, the deductible would kick in and I'd be responsible for the first $3500, which would be fine. I'm so confused and don't see the point of paying $80 or even $180 a month when I only pay $400-$500 a year for doctor's visits without insurance. Can someone please explain this to me? Thanks!

Normally, and then again I don't know what company you're looking at or what state you live in, you don't have to meet your deductible for Doctor visits that you have a co pay for and the co-pay also doesn't go toward your deductible and the $1000 deductible is for everything else, er's, outpatient services, x-rays, hospitals, surgeries and the doctors in the hospital.

Normally the deductible doesn't apply to office visits,especially routine visits.

The way the plans usually work you pay a copay when you go to the dr's office for the visit, and a deductible if you go to the hospital for bigger services.

Some plans offer you the office visit itself for a copay but if you have other services done during the visit like lab tests or xrays those go toward the deductible. It depends on the plan.