4 ms·
(1) Buy COBRA. Do it now. You have 60 days from when you left your old job. Fill out the COBRA form, either your old carrier or old employer should have sent i
by calcsam 11y ago
(1) Buy COBRA. Do it now. You have 60 days from when you left your old job. Fill out the COBRA form, either your old carrier or old employer should have sent it to the last address you had on file. If you haven't received it or lost it, call your old HR person & ask to discuss in person.
(2) When you start at your new job, they will submit forms for you to be covered. Those forms will take 30-45 days to process, because carriers do all this stuff by hand. It will be retroactive to the day you start. Most doctors are cool with waiting, but it's a risk.
(3) Some small percentage of the time, this will get goofed up by the outsourced data entry people carriers use, or the insurance broker your startup uses, and you won't get covered. You would find this out when you go to the doctor's office.
(4) Because of (2) and (3), you should sign up for COBRA from your old employer, so you can start using it now (it is retroactive to your end date at your old job). As soon as you are confirmed to be enrolled on your new company's plan, you can, if you want, drop the old COBRA.
(5) From the financial perspective of your employers, startups buy insurance from carriers on the "small group" market. Rates are determined by your employees' age, gender, smoking status, zipcode, etc, not past medical history. In other words, you will NOT raise everyone else's premiums.
(6) I'm an engineer at Zenefits, so I hear about & deal with this stuff day-in, day-out. If by chance your new employer uses us for health benefits (quite likely in the startup space) please ping me (email in profile) and I will personally make sure everything works out on your insurance enrollment. If you're not sure, ping me and I can check.
All the best.
- calcsam 11y ago7) As an aside, it will be difficult to enroll on your fiance's health insurance. You are not dependents of each other & not married. If you guys did tie the knot, you would have two qualifying events (marriage & you losing your coverage from old job), either of which on its own would let you sign up for coverage under her plan.
- x0x0 11y ago7 is not necessarily true in CA. You generally will be able to get your opposite-sex unmarried partner on your health insurance. You will have to prove pseudo-domestic partnership status. Typical proof would be joint leases, joint car ownership or loans, joint bank accounts, having each other as life insurance beneficiaries and next of kin, etc. If your fiance's health insurance is better, or if you are worried about what happens if you aren't able to work for a period of time, it may be worth asking. ps -- this is from experience on Anthem and blue cross/blue shield
- kleinsch 11y agoThis is true in most states, have done this in both Virginia and California. I was surprised at how easy it was, just a matter of sending in some information. The things I had to supply in both cases were: 1. Proof that we'd been living together for 1 year 2. Proof that we owned joint property (in our case a car)
- x0x0 11y ago(7) Thank Obama and vote for Democrats. They are the sole reason small group health insurance isn't medically underwritten and you aren't a financial disaster for your employer. Plus, in case anything happens with the new job, you can always get obamacare, even mid year because of a change in job status, with guaranteed issue, and it may well be much cheaper than cobra. Best of luck with treatment. ps -- my father went through this. Be pushy with your doctor if you need. They're not exactly lazy, but your outcome is more important to you than it is to them. They should be able to describe in detail the experience of treatment, but they may not do so unless forced. ie what drugs, what radiation, for how long, how will it make you feel, what are reasonable activity levels, etc.
- digitalzombie 11y ago> Plus, in case anything happens with the new job, you can always get obamacare, even mid year because of a change in job status, This happened to me and I got into obamacare mid year. It was pretty awesome.
- jklein11 11y agoCan you explain what you mean by "got into obamacare?"