The Difference Card / Cigna plans
This year at work they introduced a new thing with our available plans called The Difference Card. We have three available plans and I was just curious if anyone has any experience with this and if anyone can help me understand a couple of things, because the summary of benefits is not all that clear. I have a type 1 diabetic child so getting this stuff right is very important for us. I swear insurance companies try to make this stuff as confusing as possible. It was obviously a topic of discussion at work because they held an emergency Difference Card meeting on Monday to better explain, but I was on vacation that day and wasn’t able to attend, so now I’m just trying to piece it all together.
The first plan is the highest cost. When looking at the summary of benefits, it says for most things the Difference Card pays the deductible, then I pay the remaining deductible. The biggest thing I have a question about on this one though, is when it shows the plan deductible, it says the Difference Card pays the FIRST $6250 of the deductible, and I pay the LAST $750. I’ve never seen that with a plan before (where the insurance covers costs before I would) so that’s what caught my eye. Does that mean that insurance actually pays their portion of the deductible before I have to come out of pocket for anything, and then once the $6250 is reached I only pay $750 to reach the cap? The least expensive plan words it the same way, but the deductible is much higher.
The middle plan is an HSA plan with a mid level deductible but words it the other way, where I pay first and the Difference Card pays last.
For reference, the bottom two plans aren’t that much different in cost and are actually extremely affordable for myself and my kids (wife is on her own coverage through her employer). The highest plan is around 2.5x more expensive, but it seems like my out of pocket would be much less throughout the year if I’m reading everything correctly. With my daughter being diabetic we will regularly be using insurance for visits, prescription and supplies (unlike a “normal” family that may only need insurance a few times throughout the year) so I’m just trying to minimize out of pocket throughout the year as much as possible.
Sorry for the wordy post. Since dealing with T1D the last several years I’ve become pretty versed in the way of insurance, but this Difference Card thing is throwing a wrench in it, as well as the First/Last wording in the summary of benefits. TIA for any info you can provide. I just want to make sure I’m making the right choice going with the most expensive plan.
