The amount you have to pay for health care services before your insurance plan will pay any portion of your services. For example, if your deductible is $500, you must pay the $500 out-of-pocket until your deductible is considered satisfied. Once your deductible is satisfied, your insurance plan will begin paying a portion of your health care costs that are covered by your plan. Your plan may encourage you to use in-network providers by charging you lower deductibles, co-payments, and co-insurance amounts. The deductibles for in-network and out-of-network services do not necessarily cross-apply (meaning you have separate deductibles to meet). For example, you have a $500 in-network deductible and a $1,000 out-of-network deductible. Even if you have already met your in-network deductible, you would still need to meet your $1,000 deductible if you choose to see an out-of-network provider.

A fixed dollar amount you are responsible for paying to your provider when you receive a covered health care service. Insurance plans typically have different co-payment amounts for different services.

The percentage of covered health care services that you are responsible for paying to your provider after you have met your deductible. This percentage is based on the amount of service allowed. For example, if the health plan's allowed amount for a 60-minute psychotherapy session is $100, your co-insurance payment of 20% would be $20.

The amount your plan pays for covered services. For example, my standard fee for a 60-minute psychotherapy session is $150, but each insurance company has an allowed amount for in-network and out-of-network services. The allowed amount varies between insurance companies.

If you are using your out-of-network insurance benefits, providers are able to charge you the full amount of their fee, meaning if your session fee is $150 and your insurance has an allowed amount of $100, you would still be responsible for covering the different between the allowed amount and the fee. The balanced bill amount you pay does not count towards your deductible.