Health Care - Medical Discount Cards
by JJ Childers
This week's Monday Morning Mentor Minute
Greetings, I’m JJ Childers with your Monday Morning mentor. If you watch my mentor videos regularly, you know that for the past few weeks we’ve been taking about solutions for paying for healthcare. There has been a recent influx in “alternative” ways to pay for medical expenses besides traditional insurance. One of these alternatives is the so-called “medical discount card.”
Let’s look at how these cards work. For a one-time or monthly fee, companies will enroll their customers, called “subscribers,” into a savings program. As a benefit of joining the program, subscribers are given membership cards which they are told will entitle them to discounts on healthcare expenses.
Here are some tips when deciding if a particular “medical discount card” is right for you. First, be sure to understand that the card is NOT insurance. Secondly, find out if your medical providers will even honor the card. Third, if you already have insurance make sure that using a discount card will not cause any problems with your policy. Fourth, consider how much the card will cost in comparison to the amount of discounts you will receive. Finally, try to find out as much as you can about the company and the benefits of the card. You may want to call your local attorney general’s office or better business bureau for more information.
