Health Insurance for Traveler's

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I am new to travel nursing and am trying to figure out the best option for health insurance. I am too old to be on my parents insurance and I don't have a spouse who can put me on thier insurance. I plan to go PRN at my full time job when I travel, but I will loose my health insurance. What has been the best option that you have found? Do you just take the insurance the travel agency offers? I want to be home for a few weeks in between assignments to spend time with family and work at my PRN job. I don't want to have gaps of time without health insurance. Cobra is expensive. Do you just get private insurance?

Thanks!

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COBRA reflects the real cost of excellent health insurance. The insurance costs of low deductible equivalent plans on the exchange will be similar. High deductible plans will be less. Agency plans usually suck but worth shopping for. But agencies with decent plans will have lower compensation. All your compensation comes from the same pot, the all inclusive hourly bill rate agencies charge hospitals. Thus no matter how you slice the compensation, the total should remain similar.

No free lunch. You were shielded before from the true cost of your "free" health insurance. Get over the sticker shock to make a rational decision that fits your circumstances.

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Specializes in retired LTC.

And hope you don't live in New Jersey!

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Anyone have a useful comment? I'm also looking, I'd prefer travel. I was wondering if anyone has suggestions for finding an insurance company with national network of providers. Everything I can find on healthcare.gov is local HMOs

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COBRA your staff insurance for 18 months.

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Specializes in Renal Dialysis.

EDIT: I looked it up. Thanks for the tip!

Can you explan what you mean by that Ned? I've heard of COBRA but I don't understand it. Are you saying with COBRA we can keep our SAME insurance for 18 months, just pay out of pocket?

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Yes, if by pay out of pocket you are referring to the premium. There will be sticker shock when you find out the true and unsubsidized price of heath insurance from your employer (but effectively that is what you are really paying now). Ask your benefits person for the COBRA cost. By law, that cannot be more than the actual cost of the insurance (plus two percent for your employer to handle the paperwork and collect the premium for a now non-employee).

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COBRA is going to be like $600+ for an individual, which is silly imo.

Check out Obamacare 'ACA' silver plans that offer national coverage. You're eligible to sign up since you're losing your benefits at your current position. I don't recommend the bronze plans because even though they're cheaper, the deductibles for bronze plans are so high that it's worth it to pay a little more for a better plan. Should be like 300/month for an individual silver plan. They have dental, too.

Once you start traveling you can sign up with a company plan, which is cheaper than ACA and pre-tax. Some agencies offer insurance on day 1 of an assignment, some make you wait a month. But if you choose the company plan and take a break between assignments for more than a week (which is so tempting) you will lose your insurance.

Enjoy travel nursing!

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$300 is a subsidized price which travelers will not be eligible for. The full cost will be $500 plus. Agency health insurance of similar quality will cost the same.

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Naw it's really 300 unsubsidized and agency insurance is 40/week

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That is a great deal! Is it really from the federal exchange, or a state exchange?

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Specializes in Renal Dialysis.

How can you find out which insurance companies have a national network rather than local? I was looking up some companies just to get an idea. The "in network" vs "out of network" costs are the REAL differences when you're looking out out of pocket expenses.

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