<p>For any parents that can tell me what they have decided to do about college health insurance or keeping your S or D on your private health insurance. I am not sure what to do.</p>
<p>Any suggestions or thought would be appreciated.</p>
<p>For my D's school, we had to complete a questionnaire regarding our private coverage to determine if it met or exceeded their coverage. Thankfully for us, our coverage exceeded the school's and we were granted a waiver. </p>
<p>1-There are eligible providers close to the school.
2-Our deductible and copays are lower than the school's
3-Our maximum lifetime benefit is higher than the school's.</p>
<p>We are trying to figure out what we will do. Our HMO will only cover emergency room visit with admittance where D will be. She can visit the student health service if she gets sick for $20, but lab work, and x-rays if she injures something, etc would not be covered. The school insurance is $1400 for the year, and if we sign her up for it, it will become her primary insurance, but does not have any plan doctors here at home, for when she is home during breaks.</p>
<p>Our private insurance has a high deductible ($2500 per person), but it passed muster, I guess, with the college because we got a confirmation number for the waiver. It's Blue Cross, and there are plenty of providers in the area of the college even though it's across the country from us. The college insurance is a little over $1000, but we so cannot afford it. Had we not gotten the waiver, we would have needed to apply for more FA to cover the school's plan. Fortunately S never gets sick. We're keeping our fingers crossed that things stay that way. I guess he can use the student health center for the little things... not that he's ever even had any little things so far.</p>
<p>Since this subject was on another forum I read, I decided to call my health insurance today to find out what we need to do. Son is covered at school but would be out of network to go to a doctor there if he doesn't switch his primary physician there. They said he could go to urgent care or the ER in network for $35 copay without switching.<br>
I think that's what we will do. He can do the health center for small things and I'll look up info on local urgent care and put it with the first aid and health stuff I'm putting together.</p>
<p>Read the fine print! Make sure that the school's insurance is optional, not mandatory. In our case, it is mandatory (and the only way to opt out is to prove that your coverage is better). If it is considered mandatory, additional aid to covered the cost can usually be requested (as referenced by rentof2) if the student is receiving FA.</p>
<p>Thank you all for all your responses. I will need to check what my insurance covers in the area my daughter will be attending college.</p>
<p>For DS we decided to keep his private health insurance even though health insurance at his school is mandatory. Our reasoning: the health insurance at his school has a $1 million cap. In the event of a catastrophic illness or accident, our sense is that with health costs being what they are, one could go through $1 million quickly. The cost of keeping DS on my insurance was small and it also includes dental and vision which the school insurance doesn't.</p>