As we know health insurance in the UK is for the rich/fortunate as realistically thanks to the NHS we dont have to or need to buy health insurance yet.
Here in the US, you have to buy your health insurance and it can be as complacated as car insurance. Now nurses coming from the UK will normally have their health/dental insurance paid for by their company-a big perk of the job. You will have the oportunity to purchase Short term/long term disability insurance and if you come with OGP you have 14 days to complete the forms and return it back to the company. I strongly advice you to purchase this insurance the payments are minimal compared to having no wages, should something unfortunate happen to you. Other nurses coming with different agencies or direct with the hospital please make sure you look into obtaining this cover. Normally the first 15 days of sick leave will not be covered.
You will also have the oportunity to purchase your spouse and dependants insurance via your company, and for the OGP nurses this will be around $270 for your spouse and $550 for your family per month. You can get health insurance cheaper yourself but most companies will not cover immigrants until they have lived in the USA for more than a year.
You will still have to pay towards your health care and this is called co payments and depending on what you access depends on the amount you pay-$25,$50 or $75.
Now if you are unfortunate and have to take more than 30 days off work due to illness. Your health insurance will be cancelled back to the last day/night you worked! This can be a shock because if you have acccessed hospitals/medical care for the said illness you will now owe all the money for this medical attention.
So what happens when your medical coverage is cancelled? A government run company called Cobra, will offer you 18 months of health insurance but you now have to pay for this coverage and it can be quite expensive as it will be backdated to the last day you worked. If you are paying for your dependants via your company their insurance will be cancelled too, so you may be looking at $250 per person/per month, backdated so this will be a considerable amount of money intially to pay out. In order to access Cobra, you may have no choice you can only recieve the coverage if you pay the backdated premiums. Of course the advantage is those huge medical bills are then covered by Cobra.
I do hope you all find this information interesting, please do not hestitate to contact me should you have any worries, concerns or questions.
