Since health insurance is such a big part of our lives, it pays to be an educated healthcare consumer. Here are the main things you need to keep in mind when shopping for a plan:

Find out if you can get health insurance through your employer. Depending upon the size of your company, you can gain affordable access to health coverage through group plans ranging from HMOs to PPOs. Your employer will most likely require you to contribute to whichever plan you select, and these contributions are based on the level of service each plan provides.

If you cannot gain access to coverage through your employer and must buy a policy for yourself and/or your family, you need to sit down and assess anticipated medical costs for each person that needs coverage. If, for example, you are in relatively good health, you might be able to get a lower premium by going with a higher deductible.

Your next step is to carefully analyze the benefits and drawbacks of each plan, taking into account a number of factors, including deductibles, monthly premiums, co-insurance rates, co-payments, preventative care, and costs for seeing out-of-network providers, as well coverage and costs for such things as mental health care, fertility treatments, long term care and nursing care.

While you are conducting your investigation, you should also contact your current medical service providers and ask if they take the plan for which you are applying. Also, ask the prospective insurer if you need referrals from your primary care physicians to specialists on the plan. Further, find out if the hospitals and facilities you are most likely to be treated at also take the plan and what you have to do to get emergency room treatment approved.

It's also important to find out if the process for appealing coverage determinations made by the insurer is relatively simple and straightforward and if insurer denials are reviewed by an outside independent agency.

The last thing you need to find out is whether the insurer will cover you for pre-existing conditions. Currently, this is a major reason why healthcare consumers are turned down by insurance companies. However, under the Affordable Care Act, beginning in 2014, insurers will no longer be able to deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions. Check back at www.quotewhizhealth.com often to find out if this reform and other changes to the health insurance system as it stands now will actually come to fruition.