<p>Unfortunately Wash U is the primary insurance for all the students while at school, you should use this Lewer insurance first no matter what your own insurer said, and they must said that because it is very rare this mandatory health insurance because only a handful of universities has it. It is not MO law since no other MO university has a mandatory health insurance plan, they do have plans to cover those uninsured because by law all the MO students must have medical insurance.
There is not true that it has to be an insurance company from MO, Wash U had until 2005 an insurer from MA (Aetna).</p>
<p>Newhere,
You are correct that it is primary and that everyone should present the Lewer Agency card first. However,Missouri law plays into it somehow because of this statement :
"BTW, Dr. Glass, in his statements to incoming freshman parents, said that the policy is primary because Missouri state law requires student health insurance to be primary. "</p>
<p>I would like to see Dr. Glass's specific statement. I tried doing some research to find info on Missouri law regarding student health insurance and couldn't find anything specific. I think the crux of the matter is in how comprehensive the Wash U plan is. Most student plans are just not this comprehensive in covering hospitalization. Most student plans cover a student health service on campus and that is it. My hunch is that if Wash U made the coverage less comprehensive or not mandatory that there would be no conflicts with Missouri law.</p>
<p>If I had only my parents' insurance alone would be primary anyway.</p>
<p>Wash U used to have the same insurance company than Caltech has (chickering group by Aetna) and they decided to change for the cheapest one with the highest cost for the students.
Caltech students are cover 100% (80% some cases) and they paid 100% of the prescriptions after the $12 deductible, they have eye vision coverage and dental for a small fee; their SHS is much better and they have access to it 24 hours. And they have a maximum lifetime of $250,000 sickness and accident while Wash U has only $10,000. They are fully covered abroad as well. They paid only $150 deductible, and we are talking of a smaller group since Caltech has ¼ of the Wash U student body, and they are paying including the student's fees $2800 for freshman and $ 1080 everybody else.
I feel Wash U is cheating us with this crappy mandatory health plan.</p>
<p>Do you know why they changed insurers? I don’t believe the students’ best interest was the reason.</p>
<p>I thought Chickering was pretty beaurocractic. We had a lot of trouble with them not paying a bill because my son hadn't signed the form that says he has other insurance.
He was studying abroad when the form was sent and they used the HIPPA law to prevent me from doing anything about it. The person I spoke with started scolding me for taking care of something she judged that my son should be taking care. </p>
<p>You all should be getting one of those forms once a year, usually from your own insurance company as well as Wash U's except they will send it to your student in the case of Wash U, so make sure they are aware and get it signed.</p>
<p>Mmomm is correct, and Lizschup may be too. The answer seems to be company and policy specific, so call and determine the answer for your own case -- the answers vary.</p>
<p>Following up on this discussion, I called my family health insurance company (like Mmomm, BCBS) and was surprised to learn that for them, "primary" can be "secondary" and vice versa! Specifically, they consider the insurance primary for our entire family, including the WashU student, notwithstanding the Great Western "primary" policy. They said that they do not coordinate benefits with any college student's campus plan, no matter what it provides. So if bills go to Great Western first (as all SHS visit bills must), I can send the bill for any unpaid amount to BCBS. But what surprised me is that I can send any bill to BCBS first and they will pay it without regard to the other insurance because "they do not coordinate" with college student campus plans. I assume that I can send any remaining amount to Great Western and they will be happy to pay as secondary because it is less money out of their pocket, but we shall see -- I have several bills in that category because pre-existing relationships resulted in the bills being sent automatically to BCBS after the August 15th initiation date for the WashU insurance. </p>
<p>So my suggestion is to call your family insurance company to see whether they treat your student as primary on the policy notwithstanding WashU's "primary" insurance -- whether because of some unknown federal law as mentioned by Mmomm (which would mean we all should be getting the SAME answer) and company policy. As Lizschup inferred, however, usually one does have to disclose to each INSURANCE COMPANY the existence of the other's policy -- this usually is to ensure coordination of benefits. So if the claim form asks whether other insurance exists, be sure to disclose that fact. My BCBS person even said that she could see on her computer that our student has this other policy (which I had disclosed on a claims form last month). </p>
<p>Hopefully some of you who prefer the better coverage or ease of your family health insurance will get this same result. In any event, always submit to one, then any remaining amount to the other (sequentially).</p>
<p>Chillaxinator,
That is surprising and I suspect unusual, but like I said I'm no expert. I do kind of wonder if the insurance company really understands that the Wash U plan is not like most colleges. The first year at Wash U, I called my insurance company and got a response similar to yours - they assumed that a college plan is not usually comprehensive enought to be called primary. It wasn't until the second year that they realized how comprehensive it was - I can't remember how that all came about - I believe they requested a copy of the policy. </p>
<p>Your insurance does sound different though which is lucky for you!</p>
<p>Chillaxinator, Great West won’t paid anything as a secondary insurance, it happened with my nephew. Your student must present first the Great West insurance and second your own, that is the way things works with this kind of services, but you could use your primary insurance without even notified Great West and you pay out of pocket what it is left (sometimes you save money, time, and nerves doing that).</p>
<p>I just had an acquaintance mention Wash U's policy of requiring student's to receive their health insurance coverage through Wash U. Have read through this thread and checked the wustl website - I can't find anything indicating that this policy has changed for the coming school year. Anyone heard anything?</p>
<p>
[quote]
even when every student (except a few internationals) already has health insurance thought their parents.
[/quote]
this assumption is false
[quote]
Millions of people in this country can’t afford a health insurance and Wash U doesn’t get it, it feel that it’s normally acceptable to force students to have at least two health insurance policies.
[/quote]
Actually, the reason they require it is because they want to make sure that all the students are insured. I do not think that their way is the optimal one, as many students end up double-insured. However, even if the student can prove that he/she is insured through their parents at the beginning of the school year, parents' circumstances may change, and the student may end up uninsured (we had this situation in our family this year, so I know this for a fact).</p>
<p>Requiring everyone to have HI through the school makes it much cheaper - less than half, compared to other schools that require it only from students who cannot provide a proof of insurance.</p>
<p>Again, I don't think this is ideal, and don't even necessarily agree with this system, but it is much less trivial than some people are trying to make it out to be.</p>
<p>As the parent of an incoming freshman, I find this situation very vexing. Based on what I have read in this thread, there is no legal justification for WUSTL's policy on mandatory HI. </p>
<pre><code>A previous poster suggested that the policy is intended to make HI more affordable for those students who are not covered by other policies. So, it sounds as though those families who already have health insurance are subsidizing those who do not. Frankly, I'd rather contribute to a fund to assist uninsured students pay their HI premiums than pay $700 a year for insurance that we don't need. -- particularly if it involves dealing with claim forms and layers of bureaucracy.
I think the university needs to create some kind of task force, comprised of parents, students and university administrators to discuss reasonable alternatives to its current policy. I don't find the pat explanation offered by Dr. Glass very satisfying.
l
</code></pre>
<p>Just to clarify - I don't think the policy is intended to make HI more affordable for those students who are not covered by other policies. I think it is intended to ensure that all students have HI, regardless of their parents' coverage (that can change in the middle of school year, leaving the student uninsured). Being more affordable is just a "side effect" of mandatory coverage.</p>
<p>Again, I am not trying to justify this policy - for many families it is a completely unnecessary expense that adds nothing to their health benefits.</p>