Needing & Meeting My First Navigator

This week, I finally met with a certified navigator. For those who don't know, navigators are certified to help people navigate the healthcare marketplace and choose plans that will work for their unique individual situations. They might be especially useful for new Americans or adults who don't have health insurance through their work or relatives. This last year, I lost my Medicaid Expansion for just being barely over the income limit. I suffered with the cheapest plan that covered my medications, which was ~$170/month. As I enter this next year, I decided to finally seek help as I cannot continue making this little an amount of income while being unable to afford doctor's visits. That help led me to Family Healthcare, where I made an appointment with my first certified navigator.

If I'm being honest, making an appointment was kind of difficult. It took multiple calls requesting an appointment over 2.5 weeks to get someone to schedule me in. That timeline makes sense when you think about all the other people looking into changing their health plans in the next fiscal year. However, I'm glad that was the most difficult part.

Next, I went to my appointment with documents I had prepared:

• my last few paychecks & estimate for the year's total income

• my current healthcare insurance information

• my list of medications I take

• my list of doctors and specialists

• my login for the healthcare marketplace website

During my appointment, I went through the marketplace website with my navigator as my guide. I told her my current health plan issues and what I was aiming for in monthly premiums. Based on my application, I was eligible for a premium tax credit. Premium tax credits help cover monthly insurance premiums based on your household income. If your income at the end of the year matches or is close to the amount you estimate during the application, you don't have much to worry about. If your income is different, you may be required to pay back some of the premium tax credit. However, based on my low income, which I calculated using my paychecks and basic multiplication, I should have been using this to help cover my medical premiums a long time ago.

My navigator helped me apply the premium tax credit to the available marketplace plans available to me, and she helped me narrow down the plans to silver and gold since I am poor and have a disability & chronic illnesses. We even narrowed down plans based on if they covered my current doctors and medications. After comparing multiple plans, we chose one where my out of pocket costs would be way lower than their current cost and my premium each month would be under $50! What a bargain compared to my plan these last few months that has made me broke and in financial need.

Even though there is only 1 month of 2024 left, she also decided to help me resubmit my 2024 application and get better healthcare for this December in case I needed it. While it wasn't as cheap as my 2025 plan, it was significantly less than $170. I would have given up and just paid it again despite not having the funds to do so if she hadn't helped me.

This was accomplished in just one hour of my time. My navigator helped me save hundreds, maybe even thousands of dollars on my healthcare premium, medication, and doctor's visits. I'm so extremely grateful and I wish I had known to meet with one earlier one before I went broke this year. If you're just getting off your parents' or partners' healthcare plan, meet with a navigator. I promise it is worth the time, money, and effort.

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