DS2 is considering applying so I’ve been running the numbers on cost of attendance. We currently have individual medical insurance under an HMO which would not cover him in San Luis Obispo. The PPO plans in our area are very expensive so I took a look at the student insurance plan. According to this
https://www.csuhealthlink.com/portal/translator.aspx?companyid=122&statecode=CA
the annual cost for a domestic student is $7,598.85. Can this be correct? $633 per month for an 18-year-old?
I guess the alternative would be to get him an individual health insurance policy in San Luis Obispo if he ends up attending. Would he be able to change policies mid year? I’m not sure if attending college out of network is one of the allowable reasons to change insurance policies. Any advice appreciated.
Wow! That’s a lot! Are you not in California? Our kids comparable plans were about $3-4K max. Can your PPO add a rider?
@aunt bea
We are in California but in an area where the PPO plans are very expensive. Our HMO won’t offer any out of network coverage. The Cal Poly student health insurance does not offer in/out of state rates but rather domestic and international. The $7,598.85 per annum is the domestic student rate.
We too have an HMO that is not in SLO. With our first student, we took out CP’s student health insurance; it was not the same as the one offered now, and it was cheaper back then. The second year, we dropped that CP student insurance. The entire time at CP, he used the campus student health clinic for visits and prescriptions, never needing our HMO.
Our second student did not have CP’s student health insurance but did have our same HMO (that is not in SLO). He too has been able to get by with CP’s student health clinic for visits and prescriptions. He also can call our HMO for advice.
So far, neither son has had anything that would require a hospital or local doctor visit. Our HMO allows a few exceptions for out of network emergencies, but I’m not counting on that being covered. You might ask your HMO if they offer exceptions. What would happen if your family went on vacation and had some out of network medical issue?
@eduparent
Thanks for your reply which was helpful. Students in this situation seem to be in a bit of a gray area which makes me wary. The student health clinic would be fine for routine care, but an accident/emergency situation might get very expensive. I don’t think the HMO would consider living at college for most of the year in the same category as being on vacation for a couple of weeks.
@AlbionGirl Have you talked to your insurance as to how they cover students who are away at college? It’s quite common for students to attend college away from their local area.
Quite a few Cal Poly SLO students have Kaiser, and their isn’t a local Kaiser hospital, however SLO hospitals and urgent care are familiar with billing and insurance requirements for Kaiser and handle it routinely. We have a different insurance and our HMO requires that the insured individual live or work within 30 miles of their medical group (and that you have a primary doctor selected from that medical group). I changed my son to a medical group which covers the area of San Luis Obispo and picked a primary doctor belonging to that medical group, which is close to campus.
@MLM
Actually I’ve been down this path before with my older son who is at college halfway across the country and my insurance wouldn’t cover him there. I solved the problem by buying his college insurance plan which is excellent and much cheaper than the one offered by Cal Poly SLO. Thanks for your recommendation of Kaiser, I’ll look into that and see what they might have to offer.
@AlbionGirl If you don’t currently have Kaiser, I wouldn’t recommend getting it now (if your son/daughter intends to go to SLO). They don’t have a kaiser facility in San Luis Obispo the closest is in Bakersfield and I believe past Santa Barbara (Ventua?). But doctors/hospitals in San Luis Obispo do make it work and the kids get treated and kaiser gets billed, but it is complicated. If you currently have Kaiser, you can make it work. If you don’t, I wouldn’t make a point of getting Kaiser. Other insurance plans cover San Luis Obispo …Blue Shield of California, etc.