Medical Insurance for Visiting Father-In-Law

[Beachey]

My father-in-law will be arriving next Saturday for a 5 and a half month visit.

 

All along I have planned on buying him visitor's medical insurance. He is 64 years old,

 

I am trying to decide between two policies

 

1. For ~$1000 I can but a policy with an intiial $1000 deductible, a 10% co-pay up to $5000 and then 100% up to a max benefit to $500,000

2 For ~$700, I can buy a policy with an initial $5000 deductible, then 100% to $500,000

 

Here is my question, has anyone ever bought one of these policies and tried to use them. They both have a pre-existing condition exclusion and I suspect for any type of routine care they would argue it was pre-existing. Just writing out the cost, the first policy seems to make more sense if you can actually use it for routine care So ultimately, this would be only for an accident or something like a heart attack.

 

Looking if anyone has had experience with buying this type of medical insurance and whether it is good for anything but true catastrophic care.

 

A Chinese friend actually told me he does not buy anything because if needed, you go to the emergency room and ultimately my wife and I would not be responsible for my father-in-law's medical bills. However, if the need arises I believe my father-in-law would get better care if he had some form of insurance.

 

Thoughts?

[Randy W]

Speaking strictly mathematically, up to the $500,000 maximum coverage

 

1) For the $1000 policy, you would break even at $2100 worth of covered expenses - $1000 for the policy, $1000 deductible, plus $110 copay for $1100 expenses above the deductible - with a max out of pocket of $2400. That is, the $2100 worth of covered expenses would have cost you $2110.

 

2) For the $700 policy, you would break even at $5700 worth of covered expenses - $700 for the policy plus the $5000 deductible, with a max out of pocket of $5700

[Joecy]

Very nice of you to consider this option for your father-in-law!