Health insurance for travel nursing

[travelingkat85]

Hello!

Wondering if travelers take company insurance or private insurance? I know certain agencies end your coverage when your contract ends, others continue it as long as you book your next assignment and the lapse between assignments is under a certain number of days. My question is, what if I want to take an extended vacation (like 3 months)? or what if I develop a "preexisting condition" in between assignments. I don't want to be denied coverage in case this does happen. 

Any experiences with this? I'm relatively healthy, no pre-existing conditions, barely go to the doctor...but I am getting older and sh!t does happen. 

Thanks!

[NedRN]

Get an ACA plan, either from your state site or the federal site if your state doesn't have an exchange. Agency plans are usually crappy, or if good (rare), cost the same as an equivalent ACA plan.

If you find an agency with good insurance, you can COBRA it (force continuation of the insurance) for 18 months after you leave the agency. In this case, you will pay the underlying total insurance premium plus a 2% administration fee (both paid to the travel company sponsoring the plan). Mind you, the agency has to have a qualifying FTE of 20 full time employees to be subject to the COBRA law.

Not sure what exactly you mean by private insurance as outside of Medicare/Medicaid all insurance is private (insurance obtained outside of your employer or the exchange perhaps). During the Trump administration, a number of cheaper plans were approved (not ACA compliant and may have pre-existing condition exclusions). These were supposed to be short term only to cover catastrophic costs only I think (not totally sure). No matter what, in your income bracket being able to afford good insurance, you should never touch these sort of plans.