What is CareLink?

Hey guys its Alex, I’m an insurance broker and today I’m going to be telling you about what is CareLink?

So CareLink is a financial assistance program available to residents of Bexar county. You may know Bexar County, it’s the main county that San Antonio Texas lies within. It’s a financial program that works kind of like a credit card in the sense that any bills that you accumulate while you are a part of CareLink you wind up having to pay back over time.

To give you an example, let’s say you had a hospital stay with CareLink and you get a $10,000 hospital bill. Well you’re not going to pay the $10,000 all at once but you are eventually going to pay the $10,000 one way or another, it’s just going to be broken up into monthly installments.

So there’s pros and cons to that, of course, it might be affordable for someone to pay monthly 10,000 but the drawback is you wind up paying back everything that you use. Another drawback is that you can only use university hospitals, so if you travel outside of Bexar county, it’s not going to help you.

Alternatives to CareLink include health insurance through the healthcare marketplace. If you earn between 100-300% of the federal poverty level, you can get something called a subsidy that not only lowers your monthly payment to something you might see through CareLink but also you have something you have with insurance called an out of pocket maximum.
And out of pocket maximum works like this. Let’s say your insurance has a $3,000 out of pocket maximum and that same scenario happens where you go to the hospital and you have a $10,000 bill. Well now because of your insurance you only pay up to 3,000 and your insurance pays the remainder 100%. So compare the two, under CareLink you would continue to pay that $10,000, with the insurance you may only pay up to that $3,000 line.

If you have any questions on that feel free to give me a call our office area code 210 469-3900
And as always, thank you for watching.