A sneak peek at the new Health Insurance Benefits and Coverage forms

The U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services is giving a sneak peek today on how the new Health Insurance Benefits and Coverage forms are going to look.

As part of the new healthcare ruling, all paperwork pertaining to insurance plans were re-designed with a new format. According to the new law, “private insurers are now required to provide you with a Summary of Benefits and Coverage — a simple explanation of what a policy covers, written in plain language.”

Here’s the link to a pre-filled out form of the Summary and Benefits Coverage that everyone will be seeing fairly soon, regardless of what insurance company you are with. [NOTE : PDF download link]

If you’re in the healthcare field, there’s even a blank template available for you to preview to roll into your company’s forms database. [NOTE : PDF download link]

A standard form is going to go a loooong way in comparing insurance policy benefits on a direct paper-next-to-paper basis. After looking at the 6-8 page form, why something like this “nutrition label” format wasn’t mandated earlier is beyond me.