For this round of Reader Questions About Travel PT I have selected a recent email from one of our readers who excited to start down the path of becoming travel physical therapist later in her career. She has questions about health insurance that are super common amongst travelers both new and experienced. Understanding Health insurance as a travel PT can be daunting and confusing for travel PTs of all levels of experience. Here is our exchange of emails:
Hi…. great to see you bought a home! I’m currently getting my home ready to rent and getting closer to being able to travel. Probably by 2020… I am curious about how you cover health insurance between assignments.
I’m in my early .. almost mid 50s and would like to be able to take time off between assignments…. probably do 2-3 assignments per year. How can I keep benefits….
I would be back home between assignments … I guess that would have tax implications if I worked part time at home…. although… I might just relax. Thanks, Soon-To-Be-Travel-PT
Our Response:
Soon-To-Be-Travel-PT!
That is a great question! Overall health insurance while traveling is pretty good. Most companies have good plans to choose from and are reasonably priced (though different agencies vary). Coverage between contracts is another wrinkle though. Depending on how long you take off you have a few options.
1. Some agencies offer coverage extending 2-4 weeks beyond your contract dates knowing that travelers like to travel between jobs. Sometimes it can be hard to find out the details of these plans early on and often you only retain the coverage during that 2-4 weeks if you take another contract with them after your vacation is over.
2. COBRA is available to you and can be retroactively initiated should you need it at some point. This is a great option for someone who is reasonably healthy and likely not going to make a claim while off of work. You wont have to pay for the coverage unless you need it. BUT you only have 60 days to initiate it should you need it, so don’t miss your cut off date. COBRA gets a bad wrap for being “so expensive” but basically it will be double your current cost per month as most agencies split the health care costs with you 50/50 (with COBRA you pay both portions of the premium and keep the same coverage you had before). This site gives some good info on COBRA.
3. You could always carry your own insurance through the exchange or some other route and get paid a bit more every week from your travel contract. There are some options out there for folks who want an affordable plan but do not wish to go through a company. Most of them to my knowledge are religious in nature and require a signed statement regarding lifestyle choices, such at Health Sharing Plans, though the reviews are quite varied.
In our experience we have taken 6-8 weeks off multiple times and opted for the COBRA option. We plan ahead and saved up enough to cover the higher premium should we need it. In fact, we had our little girl while off work and on COBRA. Like I said, the premium is more but the great coverage we had was still in effect.
Another consideration is that some companies offer health care reimbursement in the form of an HRA (Health Reimbursement Account). Our current company will reimburse $3500/yr for our family or $1700/yr per individual. This really helps to defray the overall expense of your healthcare. Some recruiters fail to emphasize the importance of these benefits so they frequently go unused. In fact, we had taken two or three contracts with this agency before we ever became aware that this program even existed.
Hope this helps!
Steve and Ellen
Written by: Stephen Stockhausen PT, DPT, OCS
