This is NPR's Life Get.

I'm Selena Simmons-Duffin, NPR health policy correspondent.

If you're lucky enough to be pretty healthy and to have health insurance,

you might not think about it very much.

If you're really lucky, your premium is mostly paid for by your job,

your part of the cost comes out of your paycheck without you really noticing,

and you basically just think of it as background piece of mind.

If something catastrophic happened,

you wouldn't have to worry about financial ruin, most likely.

But health insurance doesn't have to be a break-glass in case of emergency type of thing in your life.

It also doesn't have to be overwhelming or scary.

It usually doesn't even take that long to get familiar with the basics

of what your health plan could do for you beyond the emergency stuff.

It starts with figuring out what's in your particular plan.

Because many consumers fail to take advantage of the benefits that are offered

by their health insurance policy, simply because they don't know the exist.

Or even worse, they end up paying out of pocket expenses

that may have been covered by their health insurance policy.

If you do pay out of pocket and need to get reimbursed,

you can learn how to file a claim.

You can also be strategic about what time of year to schedule a big procedure you might need,

like a non-urgent surgery.

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