AHIP Comes to Defense of Fixed Indemnity Plans

August 18

Fixed indemnity insurance plans — which pay a set amount when a policyholder is hospitalized or has another major medical event — are facing heightened scrutiny amid concerns that people who buy these policies mistakenly believe that they’re comprehensive health insurance.

The health insurance industry’s largest trade group, however, argues that fixed indemnity products play an important role in the marketplace and that newly proposed restrictions on those plans will have costly consequences.

“Every American deserves access to affordable, comprehensive, high-quality coverage and care. But the costs associated with getting sick or recovering from an injury continue to escalate year after year,” AHIP says in an Aug. 14 post on the group’s website. Fixed indemnity products address that problem by “helping cover out-of-pocket costs for specified services and other expenses during a time of serious illness, or following an injury,” the post states.

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Health Plan Weekly

Leslie Small

Leslie has been working in journalism since 2009 and reporting on the health care industry since 2014. She has covered the many ups and downs of the Affordable Care Act exchanges, the failed health insurer mega-mergers, and hundreds of other storylines spanning subjects such as Medicaid managed care, Medicare Advantage, employer-sponsored insurance, and prescription drug coverage. As the managing editor of Health Plan Weekly and Radar on Drug Benefits, she writes and edits for both publications while overseeing a small team of reporters who also focus on the managed care sector. Before joining AIS Health, she was a senior editor for the e-newsletter Fierce Health Payer, and she started her career as a copy editor at multiple local newspapers. She graduated with a dual degree in journalism and political science from Penn State University.