7 Ways to Keep Your Health Care Costs in Check

To rein in your medical spending, try these strategies.

It doesn’t matter how much you spend on health care; you probably wish you spent less.

Fortunately for consumers today, there are a number of tools and resources available to reduce the cost of medical bills. It starts with picking the best health plan for your family and ends with committing to a healthy lifestyle.

Here are seven ways to help you lower your health care spending and live a healthy life.

Pick the Right Health Insurance Plan
Your health insurance plan is critical when it comes to keeping your health care costs low. But with so many plans on the market, it can be difficult to find the right coverage for your family. When comparing policies, consider the following:

Premium: Often paid monthly, the premium is what you spend to buy the policy.
Deductible: The amount you pay out-of-pocket for care before your policy begins to pay for most medical costs.
Copayments: Usually a flat amount paid per visit or service.

Coinsurance: Represents your portion of the bill, typically assessed as a percentage of the billable amount.
Network: The health care providers and facilities that accept the insurance policy.
Coverage: The care covered by the policy. Some services must be covered by law but others, such as dental and vision, are optional.

If your family expects to have high medical bills, then paying a higher premium in exchange for lower out-of-pocket costs may be a smart choice. If you’re relatively healthy, a high-deductible plan with lower premiums could save you money

Consumers who decide to go with a high-deductible plan should check to see if they are eligible for a health savings account, known as an HSA. Ryan Tiernan, who is the founder of Access Point HSA and helps businesses set up HSAs for employees, says they can be a major source of tax savings.

“They are triple tax-free,” he says. “Money goes in tax-free, grows tax-free and comes out tax-free [when used for qualified medical expenses].”

Even better, companies that offer HSAs as part of a benefits package often match deposits into an account. “[Many] employers are making some type of match,” Tiernan says. “That’s a huge win.” A June 2014 report from the Employee Benefit Research Institute found that over half of HSAs have employer contributions.