Visitors Health Insurance – Explained
Travelers embarking on overseas trips or taking a vacation to spend with a family living abroad are typical candidates seeking protection under visitors health insurance. These plans are designed to pay for medical expenses incurred for a foreign citizen visiting USA; or US citizens traveling abroad. Sometimes these plans are referred to as Visitor Insurance USA by immigrant families.
Benefits:
Visitor Health Insurance benefits can vary with the type of plan. Limited benefits plan have various coverage sub-limits whereas the comprehensive plans usually don’t have coverage sub-limits.
Hospital Coverage – can pay for in-patient hospital charges including room & board, nursing, physician fees, surgery charges etc.
Doctor Office Visit Coverage – can pay for out-patient doctor office visit charges for eligible illness or injuries (i.e. new sicknesses or injuries and not pre-existing conditions)
Prescription Drug Coverage – most visitor health insurance plans can cover for prescription drugs and medical supplies for eligible illness or injuries (i.e. new sicknesses or injuries and not pre-existing conditions)
Coverage for Tests & Diagnostics – expenses for X-Rays, MRIs, CAT scans, blood tests etc. for eligible illnesses or injuries can be covered by the plans
Pre-existing Conditions Coverage – most plans exclude coverage for pre-existing conditions (chronic illnesses like high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, kidney disease etc); however the comprehensive Atlas America insurance plan can offer some coverage for acute onset of pre-existing conditions.
The Need:
When one travels overseas and falls sick or is injured during the travel it can turn out to be a financial disaster. In many cases there is ample medical help but it is usually not cheap. Especially in countries like US & Canada medical care is very expensive where a hospital bill for just a single day can exceed USD 10,000 (yes, exceed ten thousand US Dollars).
Most travelers either do not readily have the cash to pay off these medical bills in foreign currency or just in capable of making decisions on the immediate medical treatment because they would not know the cost implications.
In western countries healthcare is based on insurance; hospitals and doctors are just used to provide the best treatment and care for insured individuals. It is common sense that hospitals would treat a person who is going to pay the bills first before attending to somebody who has no ability to pay the bills.
US citizens on Medicare (government insurance for 64 and above) are not covered outside US territory. Many HMO and PPO plans insuring US citizens offer very limited or no medical coverage overseas. Besides, medical evacuation is not a benefit under most US domestic insurance offered under employee group insurance.
Visitor Health Insurance plans address the above overseas risks and cover the voids/gaps of mainstream health insurance plans.