Insurance Basics: Home

Protections for New York Consumers: Understanding Your Out-of-Pocket Costs

By law, consumers living in New York State have certain protections when shopping for and using their health insurance. Your insurer must provide up-to-date information about who is in your network.

Protections for New York Consumers: Understanding Your Out-of-Pocket Costs
Narrow Networks

Health plans negotiate the price of medical services with certain doctors, hospitals, labs and other providers.

Narrow Networks
Provider Networks

Your plan may contract with doctors, dentists and other healthcare practitioners; hospitals; labs; radiology facilities; pharmacies and other types of providers. These are the providers in your “network”.

Looking Up Costs for Behavioral Health Services

To look up the estimated costs for behavioral health services (including mental health and alcohol and/or drug services), go to our home page, fairhealthconsumer.org, and click on Medical and Hospital Costs.

When Out-of-Network Care Can be Covered In Network

Receiving care from a provider in your health plan´s network usually costs you much less than going to an out-of-network provider.

Major Life Events and Planning for Health Insurance

Sometimes you know ahead of time that a major event will happen in your life. Examples might include getting married or divorced, changing jobs or having a baby. Other times, such as at a death, you may not have advance warning.