Health Insurance, as it turns out, is handy to have.

Now that I’m looking at $8k in: ER visits (~$3k apiece), doctor’s visits, and ultrasounds (~$1k apiece); and a potential $10k surgery coming up, I figured I should figure out what my insurance covers, and how much it’s gonna hurt my wallet.

I don’t have a normal plan, like Blue Cross, I have a kinda confusing (but somewhat cheaper) one, a Cigna HRA.

Here’s how it boils down:

Phase 1: For the first $1000 in bills, Staples pays everything.
Phase 2: For the next $600 in bills, I pay everything.
Phase 3: After that, Cigna pays 80%, I pay 20%. This phase lasts until I have paid $900.
Phase 4: Cigna pays 100% of the bills.

So once I have paid a total of $1500 out-of-pocket from phase 2 and 3, that’s it for what I have to pay. After that, Cigna pays 100% of the bills.
This lasts until the untap phase (M:TG joke) in July, when it resets for the year and the whole things starts over.

I put $600 or so in a pre-tax HSA (Health Savings Account) at the beginning of the year, plus got a $150 credit from Staples for filling out a health survey, so that’s $750 taken care of. Which means of the potential $15,000 – $20,000 in medical bills, I only have $750 left to pay.

That’s actually not bad at all. A hell of a lot better than coming up with $20,000.

Now I need to figure out how my Vision coverage works. I could use new glasses, my prescription is from like 6 years ago and, although adequate, could probably be improved.