There are plenty of good health insurance plans in San Diego County, but which one's are the best?
That’s what we’ll answer this in this video series.
First of all, what are the criteria we used to determine the best plans?
1. The network of doctors and hospitals.
This is one of the most important factors for many people because you want to be able to keep your existing doctors.
2. How is the plan priced? Is it affordable?
3. What is the customer service experience like?
Nobody wants to be on hold or get a runaround.
4. Finally, are the benefits of the plan worth the price you are paying?
Those are the criteria we used to select the best health plans.
Let’s start by comparing the networks.
Many people want a PPO network because they believe an HMO will prevent them from being able to see a specialist, and they want to be able to see any doctor.
Today’s PPO networks do not contain every doctor. The PPO networks tend to be larger than HMO networks, but they do not make it easy to go to a doctor that is outside the PPO network.
The PPO health plans have extremely large out-of-network deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums to discourage members from going out of the PPO network. Plus, if you go out of network, then insurance will only pay a standard rate for those out of network benefits, and your out of network doctor will balance bill you for the “retail cost” of the services, so you don’t really have an out-of-pocket maximum is you go out of network.
PPO networks also cost a lot more than an HMO network for the same amount of health plan benefits.
Therefore, PPO plans are typically not the best choice.
The next part of the network is access to doctors.
There are 4 major groups in San Diego County, and they control most of the hospitals. We recommend you select your doctors from one of those groups.
The last consideration, is which hospitals are closer to where you live, work, and play. Keep this in mind when selecting your plan. We used this in our analysis of the best health plans.
Let’s start by comparing the networks.
Many people want a PPO network because they believe an HMO will prevent them from being able to see a specialist, and they want to be able to see any doctor.
Today’s PPO networks do not contain every doctor. The PPO networks tend to be larger than HMO networks, but they do not make it easy to go to a doctor that is outside the PPO network.
The PPO health plans have extremely large out-of-network deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums to discourage members from going out of the PPO network. Plus, if you go out of network, then insurance will only pay a standard rate for those out of network benefits, and your out of network doctor will balance bill you for the “retail cost” of the services, so you don’t really have an out-of-pocket maximum is you go out of network.
PPO networks also cost a lot more than an HMO network for the same amount of health plan benefits.
Therefore, PPO plans are typically not the best choice.
The next part of the network is access to doctors.
There are 4 major groups in San Diego County, and they control most of the hospitals. We recommend you select your doctors from one of those groups.
The last consideration is which hospitals are closer to where you live, work, and play. Keep this in mind when selecting your plan. We used this in our analysis of the best health plans.
Here are the top 4 medical groups in San Diego:
Scripps has +2300 doctors and 5 hospitals
UCSD has +1800 doctors and 3 hospitals
Sharp has +1300 doctors and 6 hospitals
Kaiser has +900 doctors and 2.5 hospitals (Kaiser rents beds at Palomar hospital in Escondido)
Each of these San Diego medical groups is highly rated, so health plans that give you access to these medical groups are rated higher in our best health insurance plan list.
In the second short video, we will cover the other criteria for the best health plans in San Diego.
In the third and last video, you will get the list of the top plans.
Second Video:
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