Insurance Basics: Home
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.
Health plans negotiate the price of medical services with certain doctors, hospitals, labs and other providers.
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”.
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.
Receiving care from a provider in your health plan´s network usually costs you much less than going to an out-of-network provider.
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.