Consider for a moment a big trip to the supermarket. The sort of outing that goes beyond getting bread but involves a long list and some pre-calculation. You arrive at the store, hopefully landing a parking spot that isn’t a mile from the entrance. Armed with a plan and a mental map, you head inside and retrieve a basket, smartly avoiding the ones with wheels in need of WD-40. Then, aisle by aisle, weaving past fellow customers, moving from colder sections to a balmier climate and back again, you nearly float through this mission. It’s a task you’re accustomed to, in a building you’re very familiar with. The items, their prices shown prominently on the shelf, are placed in the basket, and checked off your trusty list. There’s an exactitude to all of it, a set of expectations being comfortably met. You wrap things up by going to the cash register, where the transaction is completed. Right away, there’s an itemized receipt provided, noting the cost of each item, reaffirming too the eternal importance of making lists. There’s rarely any confusion afterward nor brows raised, primarily because there’s full and immediate transparency about what’s happened. You know what you’re getting out of the deal.

A trip to the hospital bears no resemblance to any of this. That’s mainly because the cost of each item, or in this case, service, isn’t often readily available. It’s an unfamiliar place where we can’t go down an aisle to see the price of this scan or that test or this examination. Consequently, we may be left exposed to medical bills we can’t afford or couldn’t have forecasted. A hospital stay, whether admitted for one day or ten, can further complicate matters and costs. But Hospital Indemnity Select, part of ManhattanLife’s Lighthouse Series, can help take some of the sting out of our stay. To see just how this powerhouse supplemental coverage works, let’s look at an example. 

Barbara is 66 and lives in Texas. Last winter, Barbara was diagnosed with strep throat and bronchitis. Her condition then worsened and she was admitted to the hospital and had a 4-day hospital stay. Although Barbara had a Medicare Advantage plan, her out-of-pocket expenses quickly ballooned to $1,500 ($500 for an admission copay and a $250 copay per day for hospitalization).

Because Barbara had an active ManhattanLife Hospital Indemnity Select plan in place with a Lump Sum Hospital Admission Rider ($500) and a 6 Day Hospital copay daily benefit amount of $700, she was able to offset all of her out-of-pocket costs with $3,550 in paid benefits.

As you can see, this product effectively protected Barbara. Her story also helps reiterate that a hospital can act as a bridge to healing, whether we’re the patient or a loved one is, while the price tag doesn’t have to be so burdensome. The doctors and nurses are there to explain what ails us and hopefully lead toward a plan or solution. This is a wonderful thing, as the hospital is largely designed for us to leave it, rather than remain at for an extended period. Though some of the nagging discomfort we have while in the hospital may stem from the bills we could receive after being discharged.

Suffice to say, a hospital is the antithesis of a grocery store. One is vastly unfamiliar and may present unexpected turns, while the other is often baked into most adults’ lives. The Hospital Indemnity Select plan can offer excellent supplemental health coverage. It was built to aid in lightening the burden of a hospital stay, which could allow for a slightly freer schedule, even for something as simple as a trip to buy bread.