Employer changing insurance - should I worry?

adymaria

Hi all,

Every year around this time my boss looks at different insurance plans and ends up switching to a plan with the lowest monthly premium (high deductible plan). Now that I've been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, I'm worried how switching plans will affect me and how my cancer will affect my employer from switching plans. Will my boss have a hard time finding an affordable plan because of me? We're a small office of only 7 employees and I think only 3 of us are under the company's insurance plan (me, another coworker with no dependents, and my boss with his family). Will insurance companies make it obvious that one of us has had very high insurance claims this past year, and as a result, everyone's premiums will be high if the firm wants to renew for 2019?

And if switching is not an issue for my employer, will it be an issue for me? Could it affect my treatment plan? Could I be denied coverage for medication I'm currently taking because the new insurance company doesn't want to cover it? I guess its possible I would have to switch doctors if my doctor doesn't take my new insurance.

Anyone have anything to share so I know what to expect?

By the way, I didn't tell anyone at my job about my cancer. If switching insurance is a bad thing, should I just ask my boss to not switch? I don't know if he has a choice or not. I think his plan may terminate at the end of 2018 so he may not have a choice.

Thank you

-Ady

adymaria

Anyone?

hhfp

My guess is likely, because they would treat you 3 as one risk pool. This is why health insurance needs to get nationalized, like Medicare.

adymaria

Sigh now i'm stressed out.

DivineMrsM

adymaria, please don’t feel guilty that others may pay a higher premium due to your health issues. It’s not your burden to bear.

You may want to ask the boss about insurance plans and he may welcome the conversation.

It is hard to say if new insurance will or will not cover your current meds. Most likely it will, but there isn’t any all encompassing answer. My husband works at a place with about 300 employees and our health insurance has switched at least three or four times since I was dx with mbc in 2011. It is a royal pain in the butt. It hasn’t affected my treatment much, tho. Sometimes I have to get different authorizations or preapproval. One thing is I went from getting PET scans to get instead having bone and CT scans due to better cost savings, but that is very common with many of us here on the boards.

BrooksideVT

In the old days, one employee with high medical expenses in a such a small group would have left your employer trapped in the current policy. Things may be quite different now, since ObamaCare. Your state insurance commissioner's office can discuss issues that may affect you.

adymaria

Thank you DivineMrsM. It's helpful to hear that you switched insurance too and it didn't affect your treatment that much.

I'm concerned that my medical treatment will be too much of a burden for a small firm since it's only 3 of us in the plan, and 1 of us has medical bills of over $15k per month. If the other 2 people in my plan have to pay higher insurance premium because of me (including my boss), I don't think that's going to fly for very long if you know what I mean. I can't find much research, but I did read somewhere that Obamacare added something called "community rating" which would prevent small employer plans from increasing in cost due to one person in the plan having high medical costs.

adymaria

Thank you BrooksideVT. I am hoping you're right and Obamacare did change that.