<p>Could someone describe how health insurance and fees work at Tufts for undergrads? I see there's a mandatory health fee which covers certain basics. Then it looks like other services are covered by insurance, which you can have either through a family plan or by purchasing Tufts student insurance. Is that correct? It's been hard to find info about this on the Tufts website.</p>
<p>My employer's open enrollment period for health insurance is coming up, so we are looking at the policies at the schools on D1's list to see if we need to consider switching from our current HMO to a PPO plan. </p>
<p>We ended up buying Tufts plan because even with a PPO plan there were no convenient doctors our son could see. We thought it was all pretty confusing.</p>
<p>Yes, it is very confusing and stressful. The whole topic of student health insurance plans needs its own thread. Many of them do not cover athletic injuries or only in a very limited manner. (Luckily Tufts carries some kind of excess policy for this.) The New York Times had a good article on the subject. I will try to find it and post it later. If you want to stick with your own plan–which will probably cost less–it must meet the specific criteria (under Massachusetts law) for getting a waiver from the student plan. This year our plan did not meet the criteria so we were forced to buy the student plan. One thing to remember is that unless the student is a certain number of miles from school, he or she must always go first to the Health Center and get a referral, or else the Tufts Aetna insurance benefits won’t kick in.</p>
<p>We did not buy the Tufts medical plan – DH’s insurance has a nationwide PPO and we have been able to find folks in the Tufts area who will take our coverage.</p>
<p>If you haven’t already,call your health insurance rep (for us, it was the HR person at the employer, who had gone through this with other employee/parents) and review with him/her what Mass. law requires to see if your plan is OK. It’s tough that open enrollment periods don’t coincide with academic calendars. Good luck.</p>
<p>Thanks, all. I’m glad to hear I’m not the only one confused by the specifics. I am indeed going to talk to our organization’s health plan reps to find out more. More information would be very welcome from any parents who’ve been through this. </p>
<p>If D1 ends up not getting accepted to Tufts, I’ll put not having to deal with this on the silver lining side of the equation. ;)</p>
<p>SlitheyTove, all the colleges have this requirement --so it may still be good to check with your HR person.</p>
<p>I just had to call our health plan because Tufts Health is sending S2 off-campus for some tests. Our coverage is a nationwide PPO, but as I discovered yesterday, the networks are regional – so the network that covers him in MA is different that the one here at home. Good to know, since the MA docs may say “we don’t take that plan,” when in fact they do, just under another name.</p>
<p>Parental advice: Let your kids make dr. appts and present insurance cards, complete forms, etc. this year before they head off to school. They should know family medical history, when they last had a tetanus shot, etc. Teach them what to do re: co-pays and billing. (S2 gave his debit card # to a doctor without signing a charge slip for a specific amount. ACK! Happily the doc has not charged S2’s account. Yet.) These are useful life lessons!</p>
<p>Thanks CountingDown. I’m still working my way through D1’s list of possibles. The PPO said they were nationwide, while the HMO will only cover emergency if D1 is not living near one of the HMO centers. In fact, if the student’s permanent address is not within one of the HMO’s service areas, they will refuse coverage. Not an issue for a freshman, but possibly further down the road. </p>
<p>A good point about learning about co-pays! D1 schedules dental and eye appointments herself at this point; I agree it’s incredibly useful for them to develop those skills before they head off.</p>