What is a Family Health Plan?

Family health plan can mean several different things. Most often, it is an insurance plan or health coverage that doesn’t simply insure the principal purchaser of the insurance. Instead it insures all qualified members of a family, like spouses and dependent children. Rules may vary on the ages to which children may remain on the plan. There are other types of family health plans that bear some discussion.

Usually it is less expensive to cover an entire family under a family health plan than it is to purchase insurance individually for each person in a family. Many companies that offer people insurance do offer them the option of buying single or couple insurance or of buying insurance for a whole family. Typically, cost is lowest for employee only insurance, rises if a couple is insured, and rises again when people insure children. The increase often isn’t dramatic, and it is generally not a per child cost.

Once people sign up for a family health plan, they simply pay a higher fee for coverage of their kids, whether they have one child or twelve. This may be slightly different when people purchase private insurance. Some companies do have a per-child fee, or charge more for a family health plan if a predetermined number of kids is exceeded. It is still usually less expensive to add a child onto an insurance owned by the family than it is to purchase separate insurance for that child.

In these plans, benefits are equally applied to all participants. Kids will have access to the same insurance, as do adults. A few small differences might exist since some benefits are age related, like well-child examinations or well-adult checks. Plans for families come in all forms, like major medical, health maintenance organizations (HMOs), and preferred provider organizations (PPOs). It’s valuable to determine the potential benefits of enrolling in each type of plan, and to choose the one that seems to best fit, though many people may not have much of a choice if employers select the health plan.

There are several companies that call themselves Family Health Plan, including one that is part of TRICARE, a US military health insurance program for service members and their families. Another company named Family Health Plan doesn’t so much offer health insurance as they offer a discount on care with a few providers. Companies use the name repeatedly but it tends to not be consistent with the traditional definition.