Nobody Told Me This: Part 3. The Stuff HR Used To Handle

Welcome to part 3 of my series, Nobody Told Me This. The behind-the-scenes of being self-employed, from the stress of earning money, chasing down invoices, building wealth, and more. Today we’re discussing all things HR used to handle. When you’re self-employed, you are accounts receivable, accounts payable, and HR, among other things. These are all the things I wish I knew about before going full-time self-employed.

I feel like this is a question I get asked a lot, what do you do for insurance? When you’re self-employed, your insurance is on you. And the options are not great. This usually means getting insurance through the marketplace. The prices depend on your income, and the state you’re in. I have opted for God knows what. I don’t even know, to be honest with you. But I’m pretty sure it’s just catastrophic insurance. That’s how bizarre and confusing my insurance is that I truly can not articulate what I have.

I don’t have a deductible or co-pay either. When I go to the doctor, they bill my insurance and then they negotiate a rate with my provider. They’ll bring the prices down on some things, and cover a bit here or there (no idea what or how much; it's a gamble every visit) and then finally, I get a bill sent to me for what’s left.

If God forbid something awful did happen, I can opt into a full coverage plan at something like $900/month with 100% coverage. I don’t ask questions anymore. I’m just praying nothing serious happens.

I’ve chosen to do this simply because I’m young and healthy. And the cost of my plan is about $375 a month. The difference in what I would be paying for a marketplace plan is instead sitting in my HYSA, making me money for when health expenses do come up. We covered HYSA in Part 2, which you can check out here.

I did have that really fun season where I was figuring out stomach issues and had an endoscopy and colonoscopy. And also that brain MRI for headaches, long story. When I went to these visits, I ended up just asking for the cash rate. This is often much lower than what they bill to insurance. And my insurance was not going to cover any of it. This is then an expense I can at least use to lower my tax liability at the end of the year.

This means I have no dental or vision insurance either. I pay out of pocket for these things and always ask for the cash price. These are expenses you will want to definitley consider if you’re choosing to go freelance.

Oh and nothing to worry about, everything came back totally normal. She’s just a tummy ache girlie and the headaches went away.

You’re probably wondering what on earth this cash price thing is. Asking for the cash price at a service is the key lesson here. This is usually significantly lower than what they bill to insurance, which is great.

I’ve even had friends with fairly decent corporate insurance who would have to pay for similar procedures in full. They instead have asked to just pay the cash price and not run it through their insurance to save money. That’s also an option even if you have that corporate job with a plan.

And yes, all of this is enraging and I am begging America to figure it out. Health insurance should not be tied to employment, or who you’re married to. No system is perfect, but whatever we’re doing here is absolutely insanity and prioritizes profits over healthcare.

There’s no PTO either. If I want to take time off, that’s something that’s going to come out of my own pocket. It also means that vacations rarely feel like a true vacation. I don’t think I’ve ever completely stepped away from my computer for days at a time. And most definitely never my phone. Full transparency, I probably could, but I choose not to.

While yes, I can and do plan ahead and make content that is scheduled ahead of time to be published. That’s a great way to at least reduce any work while on vacation, but it means prep work is required and additional hours prior to the trip to get this done.

While my business would survive without me responding to emails for a week, it’s more of the urge and pressure to always be creating and posting.

And that inability to turn off work is what we’ll talk about in Part 5. Subscribe so you don’t miss a thing.

When you decide to be self-employed, you also sign up to be your very own HR department, handling insurance, lack thereof, dental, vision and figuring out who takes care of the business when you’re gone. It’s an added stress, and most definitely a financial burden that folks with corporate jobs and insurance plans will never fully understand.

Check out the other parts of the series below, and coming up next in Part 4, the cost of running a business that nobody tells you.