RIFAN Works To Improve Health Insurance Literacy

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Health insurance is a path to healthy life and well-being. We have launched this website to provide a repository where people can find key information about healthcare plans, like the costs of premiums and deductible limits.

But for anyone unfamiliar with how health insurance works, it can be really confusing and the time to set up that coverage is fleeting. RIFAN are part of a network of groups that work to help people get health care coverage.

“Everyone’s experience with insurance is a little bit different, and you know, there’s no classroom on how insurance works in high school. So when people become adults and need to figure it out on their own, they really haven’t ever had it explained to them or resources put in their hands where they can figure things out,” says Akin Bello, National Chairman, RIFAN.

Chief Ali, the association’s DG based in Abuja, says because of how the marketplace works, small mistakes can have a huge impact on the kind of insurance rates people can get.

“How your income is counted is one of the big ones, because your income determines the relief package. So you can go from getting a significant medical bill relief to possibly not getting one at all, just because you did not have enough knowledge on how it works,” he explains.

What Is Health Insurance?

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Health insurance is a type of insurance coverage that pays for medical, surgical, and sometimes dental expenses incurred by the insured. Health insurance can reimburse the insured for expenses incurred from illness or injury, or pay the care provider directly. It is often included in employer benefit packages as a means of enticing quality employees, with premiums partially covered by the employer but often also deducted from employee paychecks. The cost of health insurance premiums is deductible to the payer, and the benefits received are tax-free.

How Health Insurance Works

Health insurance can be tricky to navigate. Managed care insurance plans require policyholders to receive care from a network of designated healthcare providers for the highest level of coverage. If patients seek care outside the network, they must pay a higher percentage of the cost. In some cases, the insurance company may even refuse payment outright for services obtained out of network.

Insurance companies may also deny coverage for certain services that were obtained without preauthorization. In addition, insurers may refuse payment for name-brand drugs if a generic version or comparable medication is available at a lower cost. All these rules should be stated in the material provided by the insurance company and should be carefully reviewed. It’s worth checking with employers or the company directly before incurring a major expense.

The RIFAN Online Market platform helps individuals and businesses shop for quality insurance plans at affordable rates. Low-income individuals who sign up for insurance through the Marketplace may qualify for subsidies to help bring down costs.

 

The impact of health insurance on health.

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How does health insurance affect health?
After reviewing the evidence on this question, we reach three conclusions.
First, many of the studies claiming to show a causal effect of health insurance on health do not do so convincingly because the observed correlation between insurance and good health may be driven by other, unobservable factors.
Second, convincing evidence demonstrates that health insurance can improve health measures of some population subgroups, some of which, although not all, are the same subgroups that would be the likely targets of coverage expansion policies.
Third, for policy purposes we need to know whether the results of these studies generalize. Solid answers to the multitude of important questions about how specific health insurance policy options may affect health seem likely to be forthcoming only with investment of substantial resources in social experiments.

 

Diabetes Risk Test

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It is very likely you know someone with diabetes given that over 20 million people—or 9 percent of the population have diabetes, and this number is only growing.

Approximately 1 million Nigerians are diagnosed with diabetes every year, which is about one in four people over 60 years of age.

Type 1 diabetes, found mostly in children and young adults, as occurring when the body makes little or no insulin.

In Type 2 diabetes, the most common type of the disease that accounts for the majority of cases, the body makes insulin but does not use it the right way. If you don’t have diabetes but want to know your risk for it, the American Diabetes Association has a free Type 2 diabetes risk test on its website.

Health and Fitness Benefits of Sports

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Looking to take up a new sport? It could be that be that these health and fitness benefits of playing sports might just be the extra push you need to get involved.

For sure, playing sports is a generally a fantastic way to improve your fitness and health. Many of us may not feel at home pounding away on a treadmill or working up a sweat in the gym, but we’ll happily chase a ball around endlessly while playing a game of some sort.

For most people, taking part in sport will improve your general health and wellbeing. There are plenty of reasons why you should become involved in sport with reduced body fat, bone strengthening, improved stamina and flexibility being some of the reasons why you should take up a sport.

The following are just some of the many health and fitness benefits of starting out in a new sport which we hope will apply to whatever sport you opt for:

  • Playing sports helps reduce body fat or controls your body weight.
  • Sports allow you will gain the satisfaction of developing your fitness and skills.
  • Sports can help you fight depression and anxiety.
  • Sports allows you to challenge yourself and set goals.
  • Playing sports helps strengthen bones.
  • Sports help aid coordination, balance and flexibility.
  • Many sports can help improves stamina and concentration.
  • Sports allow you to experience the highs and lows of both winning and losing!
  • Through sports you will meet people with a similar interest to yourself and are likely to gain many new friends.
  • Sports are a great way for families to get exercise together.
  • If you are sporty then you are more likely to have a healthy lifestyle.