Student Health Insurance - Valuable Tips

Colleges and Universities A-Z Mount Holyoke College
1

Greetings, Mt. Holyoke dad here. Billing just came out a few days ago. In regards to the automatic enrollment and charge of $2,055 for health insurance, I wanted to provide some information that I discovered. Contradictory to many things these days, I am always trying to hang onto as much of my money as possible. College is already expensive enough… This is a lengthy post, but it took me close to five hours to figure all this stuff out. If you’d like to save $2000 a year and some time, here you go. If you’re a student and completely overwhelmed with this, print it out and let mom / dad read it.

We are in Texas, however, it does not matter in regards to student, whether one is from Massachusetts or elsewhere in the states.

On top of other costs, $2,055 a year for a student who will be at school for roughly 8 months out of the year seems exorbitant. After several hours of research and talking to a few different people / agencies, I believe I have a solution that will work for us and should be a viable option for many other Mount Holyoke students as well.

1 - To clarify: on the Holyoke webpage regarding student health insurance it states, "Note: State and federal health insurance plans (such as Medicaid) do not meet the requirements and cannot be used to waive the student health insurance plan." THIS IS ONLY TRUE FOR OUT OF STATE MEDICAID. MassHealth, the Massachusetts Medicaid, CAN BE USED TO WAIVE THE STUDENT HEALTH INSURANCE.

2 - For college students in Massachusetts, they can apply for health coverage through the Massachusetts Health Connector - the state-run exchange, when they turn 19 (one can apply at 18, but it would be child coverage and parent information would be needed). As one may expect, a college student typically earns very little. Thus, it is probable the student would qualify for MassHealth. (An unanswered question here – see below regarding parent income)

The requirements for Massachusetts residency in terms of qualifying for health insurance are rather vague. It seemed like my student coming from out of state would be ok based on the reading but, to verify, I called the Mass. Health Connector and they confirmed that yes, it did not matter that she was coming from out of state to attend school. So long as she was going to school in Massachusetts, she met the requirements to apply for coverage via the state exchange.

3 - On the same Holyoke webpage for student health insurance, there is a link to Gallagher which is the provider (or more middle man, really) for the student insurance. On the Gallagher page, there is a PDF entitled "SHIP and MassHealth Premium Assistance Information." When reviewing this, I found that if a student applies and qualifies for MassHealth, the student can then complete the waiver for the school insurance. HERE'S THE KICKER AND THE CRUX OF THE IMPORTANCE HERE: Once the waiver is submitted and the student is shown to be enrolled in MassHealth, SHIP premiums (the student health insurance program at Mt. Holyoke) will be paid for by MassHealth. So, it appears the student ends up with both MassHealth coverage and school coverage. I'm not sure why it works out this way, but I think it's because of the Mass. law that requires schools to have a SHIP.

In my case, my plan is this: pay the current school insurance premium. My student turns 19 in February. At that time, she will apply for health coverage via Mass. Health Connector and as per their phone customer service, use her Mt. Holyoke address. Should she qualify for MassHealth, we will complete the waiver and hope to have school premiums covered.

Things unanswered that should be uncovered as we begin process:

  1. Can the waiver be done at any time (yes, there is a deadline for upcoming school year but is there a waiver start date for the next school year?) and will any remaining SHIP premiums (those already paid from prior to being on MassHealth) be refunded? Example: student turns 19 in February, applies and qualifies for MassHealth – can waiver be applied for right then or is there a waiver start date later? I'm going to guess we'll lose that money and the waiver / SHIP premium assistance will go into effect for school year 2019-20.
  2. If student is dependent for tax purposes, when completing Mass. healthcare application, it's possible that parent income will have to be included. If this is the case, depending on income, student may not qualify for MassHealth. The next step "up" is ConnectorCare which is for incomes too high to qualify for MassHealth. Premiums depend on region of Massachusetts and income. ConnectorCare should be comparable coverage as dictated by Mass. law and thus, waivers of SHIP should be possible. Unlike MassHealth and having SHIP premiums paid for, there will be premiums with ConnectorCare. Realistically, however, they will be less than the school premium.

Of course we won’t know if all this will go exactly as planned and researched. There may be some other hiccups / kinks to iron out, but it definitely appears workable. If so, this is a savings of $6-8K over 4 years at Mt. Holyoke.

2

Note that if you have insurance from another state, especially if it is a PPO-type plan that can be used for regular checkups and other non-emergency care in MA, you can get a waiver out of the whole thing.

If you have employer-based insurance an more than one child insured, it is probably costing you nothing to keep that insurance (since you need it for the other kids.) So all of the above is mostly useful if you have insurance that won’t work for routine care in MA (such as medicaid from another state or a HMO that does not operate there) or if you are paying now directly for your child’s insurance in the home state and it will save money to discontinue it and get the MA insurance instead.

3

I was able to easily waive the insurance for freshman year but was surprised I would have to waive it again sophomore year. We are on a state worker’s plan for NJ and Horizon quickly sent me an electronic list of all the providers in the South Hadley area and it was easily waived again. It’s definitely worth pursuing to save the money.