AETNA Health Insurance

If size does matter, and if age is venerated, then Aetna Health Insurance is the company you should choose for your family insurance needs. This huge, diversified insurance giant got its start in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1850, amidst the whispers of churchgoers who believed taking out life insurance was sinful. These days, its revenues are well into the double-digit billions.

Aetna family insurance plans cover medical, Medicare, vision, and dental. You can opt for disability or prescription plans, life insurance, and even pet insurance. Most plans allow you to choose options so that you can assign a higher priority to behavioral health, for example, over cancer care.

All Aetna Health Insurance plans are PPO-type plans. That means you can choose any doctor you like, without electing a primary care physician to make all your referrals. The only restriction is that you must go to physicians within Aetna’s immense network.

Most Aetna Health Insurance plans have an annual deductible of $1,500 to $6,000. If you choose the $1,500 deductible, your out-of-pocket maximum-the most you must pay from your own wallet during the course of your benefit year-will be $3,000 individual and $6,000 family. Office visit co-pays cost $25 for your family doctor and $35 for specialists. Prescription co-pays range from $15 for generic, or $35 to $50 for brand names depending on whether they’re listed as formulary drugs. Formulary drugs can be brand name or generic, but they are the ones your family insurance plan wants you to choose if you bypass generic. And $50 is charged for the prescriptions that are the newest and most expensive. Your costs for hospitalization, lab testing, physical therapy, or other kinds of auxiliary care will be 20% of Aetna’s negotiated rate.

The only Aetna Health Insurance plans that are not standard PPO-type are the high-deductible high-premium (HDHP) family insurance plans. They are becoming more and more popular these days as employers are pushing them because they keep human resources costs more manageable. They are ideal for people who set up health savings accounts (HSAs) for the purpose of contributing money to be used toward health costs.

If you’re a business owner looking for the right company to cover family insurance needs for your employees, rest assured that Aetna Health Insurance offers options for companies ranging in size from under 50, to 51-3,000, to 3,000-plus employees. Your hard-working labor force will be able to go online and use Aetna’s handy computer applications to choose preferred providers and manage their care. And there are over 770,000 providers!

Aetna Health allows your employees to sign up for optional or supplemental benefits that are separate from standard benefits. As an insured member of Aetna Health, your employees can participate in wellness programs as well as receive discounts on hearing aids, eyeglasses, and vitamins.

Even if you’re not carrying an Aetna family insurance plan, this is a company that has something to offer you. Check out the Vital Savings plan, which takes the edge off your costs for vision, dental, pharmacy, and other expenses. You’ll pay just 60-90% of medication costs or save up to half of your dental expenditures. There is no premium for vision benefits when you elect either a dental or pharmacy plan.

Aetna Health Insurance wants you to save money, and so its website has some great tools for the average consumer. You can take a behavioral health self-assessment to determine if you are truly experiencing emotional or mental health problems. There are options that let you apply for wellness clubs or gym memberships. And Aetna offers a complete library of books and DVDs on wellness topics. Aetna wants you to stay healthy, because then both you and the company will save money.