<p>I am looking at some college web site and the student insurance info caught my attention. This school requires all full time students buy the school health insurance plan. They can't opt out even if they are covered by their parents' policy. Is this a common practice?</p>
<p>Not to my knowledge. Can you share what college this is?</p>
<p>That is required in Illinois. Illinois has a state law requiring all college students to have health insurance.</p>
<p>I only have a sample size of two, but in both cases we got waiver from school insurance when our employer insurance carrier certified to ther school that they covered out-of-area costs at levels comparable to the school coverage. Understandable that school health services or medical centers don’t want to get stuck with big unreimbursed med costs.</p>
<p>Nova10-I think the OP’s question is whether there are colleges which require the student to pay for the college’s insurance even if the student is insured under the parent’s plan.
I have two children going to Universities in the state of Illinois and they are both insured under our parent’s plan.</p>
<p>It’s one thing to require students to have health insurance. It’s entirely different to require students to pay for health insurance even if they are already covered by their parents plan. Most colleges seem to have Aetna health insurance plans, and in most cases, allow students to “opt-out” if they are already covered by their parents’ plan. </p>
<p>But some, I have sadly discovered, require students to pay for and participate in their own version of health care. I have dealt with a total of 5 colleges/universities recently but WashU is the only one that requires all students to pay for and participate in their student health program. (all others allowed us to opt-out.) At washU, Opt-out is not an option.</p>
<p>At Mizzou, they are required to purchase the health ‘plan’, but then their own insurance actually pays the bill. It is mandatory. It’s not a lot, but I do think it’s crazy.</p>
<p>I do hope some government law will disallow this type of mandatory redundant coverage. It’s totally a financial decision, especially because most college age kids are the least risky to insure. (i.e. least likely to incur high expenses, like long-term illnesses like cancer or diabetes during these 4 years or nursing care) and to require for all students further reduces costs. Savings, that are, unfortunately, not passed onto the students.</p>
<p>My kids’ colleges have two levels of insurance coverage. Their basic plan is required, and covers visits to the college health center. The other, more comprehensive plan is a substitute for private coverage, and can be waived each year if the family has insurance coverage already for the student.</p>
<p>If u are new to this, please don’t confuse a school’s required Health Center Fee with health insurance.</p>
<p>The Health Center Fee covers the operation of the school’s own health center - the kids can go there and get seen by a health professional for free. You have to pay this fee.</p>
<p>On the other hand, as everyone has stated, if you already have regular heath insurance through Mom and Dad, the school’s usually consider that to be sufficient and that fulfills the need to have health insurance.</p>
<p>My son had to answer some questions on a link that the college set up to the health insurance carrier that they are currently using. If you have a certain amount of coverage then you don’t need to purchase additional health insurance if you attend this college. I recall that it asked if you types of coverage too (ie: what type of coverage for mental illness, drug prescription coverage, etc.). It just so happened that our insurance coverage is through the same company that they use (only ours is sold through another state).</p>
<p>At Ohio State (my only experience), we had to provide, online, our health insurance information to prove dd’s coverage for well care and catastrophis care. We chose to pay for a supplemental plan, that at $187 for the whole year!, covered her sick care…3 visits later, for almost stitches and an eye issue and a prescription, we were more than paid back. The health center charges along the lines of an urgent care and was not cheap. You have to follow their hours and call ahead…dd’s first eye issue, which we thought might be pink eye, came up after their Saturday hours were over (haha, she got up @11 and they closed at noon). She went to the CVS minute clinic and the wrong diagnosis and drops cost $100. She followed up at the health center when it didn’t get better, was correctly diagnosed and given different drops…had to go back a week later to be checked. We called our eye dr when she got home and they verified the treatment.</p>
<p>S2’s school will let you opt out of their coverage if you have your own but the student has to get online and fill out the “opt out” form. It had lots of questions about insurance that my student didn’t know the answers to, various ins. numbers, group policy #'s, etc… I ended up doing it for him. If the kids don’t do the waiver, the school automatically bills them for the schools insurance on their tuition bill.</p>
<p>We do pay a “health center fee” too. Our student health center doesn’t charge additional fees for visits unless it requires something unusual like an x-ray. S1 need crutches once and had to pay extra.</p>
<p>packmom, your son had the same opt out type of form that my son had to complete. I also got involved bc he did not know some of the answers to the questions asked.</p>
<p>ddd, I might have paid $187, but for my son the cost of coverage between $500 and $600. Since we have coverage already, there is no need for more coverage. That money would be better saved for any deductibles should he seek medical care. Heck, it would pay for 4 pairs of eyeglasses at Costco prices!!</p>
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<p>This of course might well be the reasoning behind a particular college’s decision to not allow students to opt out: If all students must pay, then I bet the cost of premiums goes way, way down because the pool is much larger and as others have noted, the typical college student shouldn’t be at particularly high risk. But if students can opt out and * large numbers do * it’s not a surprise that the premiums for those unlucky enough to have outside coverage to have to pay substantially more for health insurance.</p>
<p>Also agree with others that its important to distinguish between health * insurance * fees and health * center * fees. They are for two very different things.</p>
<p>^^True, and I just noticed a thread about Bryant’s U. opt out deadline being today. The policy that they are selling is $1298/student!</p>
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<p>Would this be the same insurance that the college offers to its employees, however? Because there would presumably be a large “critical mass” of employees? Just curious.</p>
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<p>At most colleges, the answer is NO. I personally don’t know of any college where the faculty and staff are under the same plan as the students: The student plan typically covers major and catastrophic health issues only unless there are a very large number of married students with dependents on campus or a health center with very, very limited services.</p>
<p>At large public U’s (like mine) the employee health insurance is typically a choice of one of the full, comprehensive medical plans available to all state employees as a major fringe benefit and it’s typically a whole lot more expensive than the plan offered to the students: For my SUNY school, the state and employee split the costs of the premiums, with the state picking up the major cost of the premiums. Even with the state picking up the main part of the premium, my health insurance premiums ain’t cheap: My health insurance premium (which includes the surcharge to cover my family) is about $150 per paycheck and I get paid every two weeks. [If I only needed to cover myself, it would be about $40 per paycheck.] So my current annual out of pocket charges for health insurance is far greater than what the students pay for their much more limited health insurance plans even when those plans do run $500 or $600 per semester.</p>
<p>Since the faculty plans are comprehensive medical insurance instead of catastrophic medical insurance, the benefits and maximum life time allowments for the faculty plans are much, much greater than those in the student plan. The employee plan must cover preventative care and routine office visits for acute, but non-life threatening illnesses, minor medical emergencies, etc., but the student plan does not need to cover these things (in general) because students can receive this kind of routine health care through the health center and faculty and staff cannot.</p>
<p>Also at some U’s the student health insurance plan cannot be extended to cover other family members. [At some U’s, however, it can. I remember that as grad student at UIUC in the early 80s, the student health insurance was both cheap and affordable, even to put your whole family on, which was really important to those of us grad students who were married, with kids or planning on getting pregnant while in grad school.]</p>
<p>Good point about the health center fee vs. insurance. One son is starting at Northwestern this fall, and the mandatory health center fee is $200, which is perfectly reasonable as it includes visits to the doctor there as well as certain basic lab testing. The insurance being offered, however, is priced at $2,466 per student. You can “opt out” if you have insurance coverage in effect through the parent.</p>
<p>I spent four years at Northwestern and never once walked into the student health center, for anything at all!</p>
<p>Robinsuesanders, thank you for your explanation – makes a lot of sense.</p>