I'm self employed and I live in NJ. I purchased a BCBS plan by myself and I pay about 1300/month. I basically purchased the most expensive plan for myself and my wife because I didn't want to take any chances of something not being covered even though my wife and I are young and healthy. The only thing is that we've been TTC (trying to conceive) for a while now with no luck. Her OBGYN couldn't find anything wrong with her but said more tests are needed. My urologist told me the same thing. But BSBS doesn't cover anything related to infertility for further testing (not even diagnosis testing). So I find out that NJ has a mandate for infertility coverage but it only applies to group policies that cover more than 50 people. So my question is: is there any way I can purchase a group policy through an association or some other way? By purchasing the most expensive policy I thought I'd be covered for everything but now I wonder what else is not covered. And I bet there are lots of other coverage that is mandated for large group policies but not for individual policies. So I want to get on a group policy. Any ideas? The chambers of commerce in NJ do not offer health insurance. And I looked into the national association of the self employed (http://www.nase.org/BenefitsHome.aspx) - but there are lots of complaints about this org. on rippoff report saying its just a front to sell insurance products for a particular insurer.
This may be a shot in the dark but I would try an employee leasing company.I'm in NY but when I was self employed I leased myself to my company. (Sounds wierd but it was a good deal) they provided group health ins along with other administrative benefits (I had workman comp and UE for myself-) when I hired other people I just added them on, same deal for them.
I would try looking at business associations - even if they are not related to your line of business. I paid $400/year to join a high tech business association so that I could get on a group plan. They had a lot of startups I guess and that was part of their service niche to get small companies (I was a solo operation) coverage.
Try calling around and find some other doctors who will be more creative with diagnoses and procedure codes to cover the testing you want done. I think it might be solvable this way. (deleting reference to IEEE because I do not think they have such policies any more). Otherwise try a good local insurance agent. Many group policies from smaller groups, including the one you mention, may be worthless because they have ridiculous limits and exclusions and can be cancelled or have huge rate increases every few years on their older policies. Overall, you may be better off with your BCBS policy which can not be cancelled.