Generally, there are two broad categories of health insurance policies: disability and medical expense. Basic health insurance policies provide for medical expenses that result from accidents and sickness offering various medical, hospital and surgical benefits. Medical expense coverage provides a wide range of benefits for hospital, surgical and medical care. Other benefits may apply as well, such as private nurses, convalescent care, and more.

Health Insurance policies may be limited to only one or two types of coverage like hospital or miscellaneous medical costs or surgical expenses. These are known as basic plans. Other, more broadly written policies may cover all of your expenses resulting from accident or illness using some specific exceptions. Medical plans include fee-for-service where doctors and other providers receive a payment that does not exceed their billed charge for service provided.

Although less common, prepaid plans provide medical or hospital benefits in the form of service rather than dollars.

You should consider specified coverage versus comprehensive care when selecting a medical expense plan. In other words does the plan feature only specific benefits or is the health insurance coverage complete and comprehensive?

Can you use any medical professional you choose, versus a limited number of providers. Are you required to choose from a specific list of providers?

National versus regional operation. Is the health plan limited to a specific geographical region or do they operate nationwide?

Insured versus subscribers. Are participants considered insureds (the person who receives the benefit) or subscribers (the person who is paying the premium)?

We are going to take a look at the limited coverage for hospital, medical and surgical expenses. This will help you to understand how the components are combined in major medical and comprehensive policies. The broad definition of basic medical expense insurance in most states includes hospital, medical and surgical expenses. The purpose of this type of insurance is to cover a broad range of medical, hospital and surgical expenses as well as separate categories of medical expenses.

Let's explore individual versus group coverage.

No matter how a policy is written, narrowly or broadly, health medical expense insurance is designed to reimburse for the cost of care whether it results from injury or illness.

Both individual and group policies are available to consumers. Normally individual policies are more costly along with having limited benefits. Group policies may provide you more secure coverage, and stable rates. But generally speaking, both types cover the same medical services. You really have to compare the details. Individual policies can offer very competitive premiums in the beginning.