Individual health savings account-compatible insurance plans are less likely than big HSA plans to pay for the full cost of preventive care, but those that do, pay for richer benefits.
Researchers at America's Health Insurance Plans, Washington, have reported those finding in a summary of results from a survey that looked at "first-dollar" coverage for preventive care at high-deductible, HSA-compatible health insurance plans covering about 1.7 million U.S. residents.
Only about 59% of the individual HSA plans offer first-dollar coverage for preventive care, compared with 99% of the large group and jumbo group HSA plans, the AHIP researchers report.
But the researchers found that almost all of the individual HSA plans that do offer first-dollar preventive care benefits provide first-dollar coverage for all eight of the preventive benefits studied, including infant and child well care, immunizations, mammograms, Pap smears, physicals, the prostate-specific antigen test, colonoscopies and smoking cessation programs.
