Health insurance in the U.S. is notoriously confusing. So we\u2019re covering the basics to make navigating your plan a little easier. We explain the difference between a deductible and an out-of-pocket limit, define copay and coinsurance, and point out where surprise bills can get you in trouble, from out-of-network providers to prior authorizations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Read more coverage from our \u201cBill of the Month<\/a>,\u201d \u201cHealth Care Helpline<\/a>,\u201d and \u201cPriced Out<\/a>\u201d series:<\/p>\n \u201cHow To Make a High-Deductible Health Plan Work for You<\/a>,\u201d by Jackie Forti\u00e9r.<\/p>\n \u201cTo Avoid Care Disruptions, Know When the Clock Runs Out on Your Prior Authorization<\/a>,\u201d by Sarah Boden.<\/p>\n \u201cSo Your Insurance Dropped Your Doctor. Now What?<\/a>\u201d by Bram Sable-Smith.<\/p>\n KFF Health News<\/a> is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF\u2014an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n This <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/insurance\/watch-8-health-insurance-terms-you-should-know\/”>article<\/a><\/a>; first appeared on <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org”>KFF<\/a> Health News<\/a> and is republished here under a <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-nd\/4.0\/”>Creative<\/a> Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<img src=”https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2023\/04\/kffhealthnews-icon.png?w=150"<\/a>; style=”width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;”><\/p>\n
![https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2023\/04\/kffhealthnews-icon.png?w=150"<\/a>; style=”width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;”><\/p>\n<img id=”republication-tracker-tool-source” src=”https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/?republication-pixel=true&post=2232979&ga4=G-J74WWTKFM0"<\/a>; style=”width:1px;height:1px;”><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Health insurance in the U.S. is notoriously confusing. So we\u2019re covering the basics to make navigating your plan a little easier. We explain the difference between a deductible and an out-of-pocket limit, define copay and coinsurance, and point out where surprise bills can get you in trouble, from out-of-network providers to prior authorizations.\u00a0 Read more…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":13189,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13188"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13188\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2023\/04\/kffhealthnews-icon.png?w=150"\"){kind=link}