<p>Just out of curiosity. How good is MIT Health Insurance? What heppens if we get sick at MIT? Does the student have to cover full cost of medicines, partial cost or nothing? </p>
<p>I do not have any experience with Health Insurance. I have never used one. Thanks for your help:)</p>
<p>Also, how expensive is the policy? Do most students use the health insurance or do they use their parents' healthcare benefits?</p>
<p>There will be information about this year's cost and coverage sent to students soon. Details about the current MIT Student Health Plans can be found here. Everyone gets the basic Student Medical Plan as part of tuition costs (covering urgent care on-campus). In addition, you are automatically billed for the Extended Insurance Plan, which covers hospitalization, prescription drugs, etc. </p>
<p>If you can submit proof that your family healthcare benefits will cover what the MIT Extended plan offers, you can submit a Waiver and you will not be charged or enrolled in the Extended plan. In our case, we were going to opt out, but our HMO covers only emergency hospitalization in the Boston area, but does not cover long-term hospitalization in that area, so we were unable to duplicate the student policy and could not opt out. Checking my payment history, we paid $1440 for this year's student insurance, but I'm sure it changes every year. I don't know the ratio of how many students use the Extended plan vs. successfully submit Waivers.</p>
<p>On a personal note, MIT Medical is a pretty good college healthcare service. If you're sick and go to urgent care, you'll probably wait 45 minutes to an hour, and they don't dispense antibiotics like candy (sorry). Odds are decent that they'll tell you to go home and get some rest. :) But they're generally very helpful, professional, and understanding -- which is really great when you've never been to the doctor without your parents.</p>
<p>I had a minor medical emergency last year, and it made me feel so much better that Medical was on top of getting me appointments with various doctors and making sure I got better. My life was stressful enough, and it was great that I was able to get everything taken care of in a timely fashion. Other friends of mine who had to be hospitalized or have serious medical care (broken bones, mono, etc) have had similar experiences.</p>
<p>You're assigned, by the way, a primary care physician (well, you get to pick him/her from the list). Medical is pretty big, and it really feels like a real health care community rather than some lame-o campus health service.</p>
<p>I think most students use the MIT extended insurance policy, unless their families are local. The paperwork and red tape for using out-of-the-area parents' insurance can get overwhelming.</p>