@mtemmd The advice I’ve been given is to buy it through the school store because they’ll service it and provide a loaner if/when it breaks. I have no idea ig they would provide the same service for a laptop purchased elsewhere, that’s just what I’ve been told.
@Johnny523 I would never assume the student health center is free. Without the school’s insurance, my D19’s health center is somewhere along the lines of $60 just to be seen.
Wow, $60 is expensive. We have Kaiser insurance and there is a Kaiser near my oldest’s campus (UC Davis). Most with Kaiser opt out of UC SHIP. Opting out saves us $2600/yr.
These are the charges to be seen on campus (Student Health Services) for students with private insurance. For the most part it is the same as students who enroll in UC SHIP. At parent orientation they made it clear that the insurance is so that students are covered for things like hospitalization, broken bones and/or long term services (ex. diabetics, allergy shots). The average student with a cold can be seen on campus for a routine visit at the same cost as someone with university insurance.
Primary Care Appointments
$15.00
Acute Care Clinic Visits
$30.00
Specialty Appointments
$30.00
Psychiatry Appointments
$30.00
X-Ray Procedures
$50.00
Laboratory Tests - sexual health
$10.00/$15.00 for private insurance
Laboratory Tests - most in-house
$25.00/$30.00 for private insurance
Physical Exams
$50.00
Dietician
$15.00
$60 -$90 is what we pay for a 5-10 minute appointment with our in network United Healthcare pediatrician at home. So it sounds right to me.
@silverpurple we have no copays or deductibles with our insurance, so it seems pretty steep to me.
@milgymfam - So you just pay your insurance premiums and that’s it? Everything else is free?
I just switched from a PPO to a HDHP this year so we’ll see how that goes. We did have $35/$65 copays before, but now I’ll be paying 100% of the cost of the visit. Yikes. But going from $3600/year in insurance premiums to $600 with them putting $1000 in my HSA every year. That will cover a lot of urgent care visits!
Interesting. At every school I’m aware of, there’s a mandatory fee that covers it. Obviously it’s a good idea to check with the school then.
Wow – our co-pays are $10 per visit, unless it’s for the ER. This is for HMO. $60 per visit or more sounds crazy to me. Especially because our younger D has lots of dr visits for various reasons. Our current insurance would cover emergency services out of state but not regular visits. I also just remembered I need to figure out if prescriptions have coverage out of state, as well. Ugh. Hopefully this will turn out to be simpler than what I think it will be, or maybe my Ds will end up staying in state.
I’m trying to avoid the mandatory fee. At some schools, that fee can be $1K or more.
We will probably decline the college health insurance as it’s $3,500 a year. Just need to make sure that our PPO (UHC) will cover any emergency hospital visits, etc?. Lots to think about.
The fee for health insurance at D19s school is $2600, so we obviously wanted to avoid that. We don’t have premiums either, they’re built into my husband’s military pay.
I am loving this medical insurance conversation because it shows how completely our individual baseline informs our reaction to school health costs.
Our health insurance is $27,000 a year in premiums and that is a HDHP plan (self-employed). We then have a $12,000 OOP that must be satisified before we are covered at 100%. We cover all costs (including prescription drugs) at the insurance ‘negotiated rate’ until we hit $5,000 OOP and then have a 80/20 split with the insurer until we hit the $12k. I have had many the occasion of a $200-400 bill waiting for me at the drug store if my children need a drug prescription in Jan - May of any year.
Oh, I forgot to say, we have what is considered to be “excellent” insurance.
The idea of getting to pay a flat sum of $2-3K out of pocket and have a child covered for the year sounds absolutely fabulous. A deductible of $25-$50 for a doctor visit sounds amazing. We are used to several hundred dollar bills for anything other than routine, preventative care (that is covered so I am not paying anything OOP for my children’s yearly physical/vaccines).
@beebee3 there so much more to the perspective than the insurance costs themselves. It’s crazy that your premiums are $27,000 per year, especially since that is over 50% of our family’s income for a year. Add that $12k threshold on top and your basically there.
Yes, health insurance rates are crazy…and it does blow my mind that we pay the same amount on health insurance as many people earn working full-time in a year. Pretty much proof positive the system is broken in a fundamental way.
Edited to add: I mean broken in the sense that there are way too many people who can’t afford health insurance. I do try to practice as much gratitude as I can that we have been lucky enough to be in a position where health insurance is doable, if painful.
I’m not seeing that at either of DS’s top choices. They have a small fee to help “subsidize” the health care costs, but you’re still required to either buy the schools insurance or have your own. UMN says the fee usually means that routine care things cost nothing…AFTER your insurance is applied.
I have a friend (50s) who takes classes pt time at our local state U; and gets the insurance for her plus her HS son. 7 credits + fees + student insurance is cheaper than a policy on her own. Her spouse is retired and has benefits through his work; their college kids get student insurance through their colleges . BeeBee3, have you ever thought about that? it is broken for sure.
@bgbg4us I might have to look into that, I have some time until next November when we are able to re-assess our health insurance to do that. 
Check to see if your insurance has a mail order option. Routine meds such as birth control can often be ordered that way. At UCD, the Student Health Services are pretty good about writing prescriptions for generics when available and the pharmacist on campus told us that when a student has private insurance, they always direct the student to the pharmacy in town (CVS, Rite Aid, etc) where the student’s insurance covers the prescription.
I think you all have to ask the health insurance question at each school. We had S19 just stay on our insurance. I made sure the local hospital and pharmacy were in network. And his college doesn’t charge anything for any student to go to their health center for flu shots, sick visits including blood draws to check for mono or STDs, or minor injuries like strains and sprains.
We had a discussion similar to this on the 2019 thread and his college seems to have one of the best on-campus clinics since it takes care of 90% of what they need for free. It’s good to be super clear on what you’ll be paying if your child gets sick or hurt while at school. College websites aren’t always super clear and it can be confusing. You can always call the school’s health center to get clarity.
We’re talking about different things. Every school requires students to have health insurance, either on their own (usually through their parents) or they have to buy it through the school. That’s $1,000 a semester or so as someone mentioned.
Completely separate from that is a fee that everyone has to pay that covers the student health center (and is much less than the insurance fee). At the schools I’ve seen, this allows students to use it for free - the visits don’t get billed to insurance or have copays. Per some other posts, this is not the case at some schools, so I stand corrected.