<p>I sent an email to UA, but I was wondering if someone could fill me in here while I wait for their response. I am a prospective student for the Fall of 2012.</p>
<p>I’m not sure it’s mandatory (I would want to have it anyway), but how exactly does it work?</p>
<p>I read on the UA website about it’s costs, coverage, and policy, but it sounds pretty dismal. My wife is a type 1 diabetic and I was interested in getting her covered through that policy (at a whopping $4,000/yr!), but the policy seems really to cover almost nothing. It states that they do not allow coverage on preexisting conditions unless the individual has been on the policy for 12 months. It’s hard to argue that type 1 diabetes is not a preexisting condition so that means non of our expenses for her illness would be covered for the first year. Is this exactly how it works, or is the info on the site misleading somehow?</p>
<p>Thanks for everything.</p>
<p>Sorry, never mind, found it:</p>
<p>PRE-EXISTING CONDITION means any condition which originates, is
diagnosed, treated or recommended for treatment within the 12 months
immediately prior to the Insured’s Effective Date under the policy unless:
a) The Insured was previously covered by this policy in the prior plan for 12
continuous months without a break in coverage, and/or
b) The enrollee/applicant provides a Certificate of Creditable Coverage to
UnitedHealthcare StudentResources (UHCSR) at P.O. Box 809025, Plano, TX
75380-9026 to document prior coverage with another health plan for the past 12
months. Prior coverage for less than 12 months will be given partial credit
towards the 12 months requirement for the 2011-2012 policy year.</p>
<p>My wife is currently enrolled in a health care plan and has been for more than 12 months continuously. Still I think the price is a little high for giving nearly no coverage. . . Thanks to those who read this anyway.</p>
<p>turtle…</p>
<p>I think if you move to T-town, your wife should try to get a job at Bama in some capacity. If so, then I think the university’s group insurance would accept her immediately with pre-existing conditions, etc.</p>
<p>Since she has a degree from a very good univ, she probably could get some kind of full-time employment at the univ or the law school. I have a contact with the law school that I could connect you with. </p>
<p>If she’s not interested in a job at the school, then perhaps at one of the larger companies or law firms in the area which would likely have group insurance which takes pre-existing conditions.</p>
<p>how old is your wife? I think her parents insurance can cover her til she’s 26…even if she’s married.</p>
<p>Hi mom2,</p>
<p>Thanks for the reach out regarding the school connection. I don’t think she would be opposed to working at the school: a job is a job until she can settle into something that she would enjoy more/be able to turn into a career. I’ll let her know and keep it in mind.</p>
<p>We would definitely be scouring the local law firms even as far as Birmingham since it doesn’t seem to far from Tuscaloosa, unless my eyes deceived me on Google Maps. If she would be able to get insurance through a job there, then that would be ideal, but I’m looking into the university’s policy as a just-in-case scenario as nothing is guaranteed.</p>
<p>And she turned 25 in June, so by time I would start school, she’d be 26. Bummer.</p>
<p>I sent an email to UnitedHealthcare asking if she would be covered in her/our situation if I were accepted and attended Bama. They replied rather quick, but asked me another specifying question without answering mine, so I’m still waiting on an official reply.</p>
<p>We spoke at length about going to school in Alabama last night and all seems well, just our biggest issue I think would be health coverage - not even for me, but for her. I don’t think we’d be able to afford living there, or anywhere, without it (at least it would make it extremely difficult). So I appreciate all the offered help. It really shoots thing more in the “possible” direction.</p>
<p>I think B’ham would be too far to commute…it’s about an hour’s drive. :(</p>
<p>Her best bets would be working for the univ (or law school), working for a lg law firm, or a lg company that has group insurance because those usually take pre-existing. Even a full-time position at Sams Club or Target would likely yield insurance. </p>
<p>She could even get a job with one of those companies in Calif now and then transfer to T-town and keep her insurance. That would at least provide her with insurance while looking for work in her chosen career. That actually might be her safest bet…getting a job in Calif and then transferring to T-town. </p>
<p>Large companies in/near Ttown that might offer group insurance to full time employees:
Sams Club
Target
Walmart
Sears
Best Buy
Barnes and Noble
Belk
These are off the top of my head, there may be more.</p>
<p>**Oh MY…just thought of this!!! ** there is a large Federal courthouse just opened in T-town!!! A job there would certainly net health insurance!!!</p>
<p>[Tuscaloosa</a> Federal Courthouse is dedicated | Alabama’s 13](<a href=“http://www2.alabamas13.com/news/2011/dec/19/2/tuscaloosa-federal-courthouse-dedicated-ar-2897184/]Tuscaloosa”>http://www2.alabamas13.com/news/2011/dec/19/2/tuscaloosa-federal-courthouse-dedicated-ar-2897184/)</p>
<p>Personally, I would love to work there. The new building is beautiful and located right in the renovated Downtown where a lot of cool restaurants are. It is so quaint there. </p>
<p>There is a large Mercedes Benz factory near T-town…don’t know if they have a legal office that might employ your wife, but certainly they offer group health.</p>
<p>Would you be working while attending school? If so, what kind of work do you do?</p>
<p>Google did lie.</p>
<p>I think the univ/law school environment would be good for her. It’s pretty hard to find a job around here that she can transfer to another state with, and that may usually entail working with that company for a few years to show a commitment to them before the use the resources to relocate you.</p>
<p>The new courthouse would be amazing. We’ll look it up to see if they have some sort of hiring/job posting website. She is interning for free at the local public defender’s office, but she can’t work for free forever. She’s giving it 6 months before they offer her a paid position (our county just got some federal grant for a new legal program involved with the public defender office, and there are rumors that they might hire some paralegals to help out) or leave to look into the Starbucks, Target, and other retail outlets. The reality is that while she has a degree from a good private univ and has completed a specialized ABA accredited program, she can’t be shopped around for free for 12-18+ months.</p>
<p>I’d try to work part-time in college if time permitted. Right now I work in federal service and while it’s actually a great gig, there’s really no room for me to go up b/c of the lack of education . . . hence I’m going to college. The accounting/business with accounting emphasis route would just open the most doors for me from where I’m at now and for where I want to end up: federal law enforcement via IRS CI.</p>
<p>* It’s pretty hard to find a job around here that she can transfer to another state with, and that may usually entail working with that company for a few years to show a commitment to them before the use the resources to relocate you.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>I didn’t mean to that extent. I meant that once you have a job with X company, if you apply to the same company in another state, they’re more likely going to hire you. I wasn’t talking about a formal transfer where a company gets really involved and pays for the move and such. </p>
<p>Google did lie.</p>
<p>??? what happened?</p>
<p>d try to work part-time in college if time permitted. Right now I work in federal service and while it’s actually a great gig</p>
<p>What do you do? Do you work for a federal office or what?</p>
<p>Ohhhhh, right, it would be easier to get a job with a company that has a presence in AL and apply directly that way. I was totally thinking of a transfer-type thing.</p>
<p>Google lied to me about the distance from Tuscaloosa and Birmingham . . . well my eyes did while looking at the map anyway. I thought like 30 mins.</p>
<p>Well I work in the IRS in an administrative support-type position. Please don’t hate me.</p>
<p>Have you looked into getting a new individual policy? For her diabetes, there would be a 12 month waiting period before they would cover it, but it’s better than nothing.</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>LOL…no, no one is going to hate you. </p>
<p>However, can you use that connection to find out what fed jobs are available in T-town?</p>
<p>I actually just talked about that with my wife. When I get back to work after the weekend I was gonna look up where the places of duty (called PODs) were in AL and see if they are in need of someone in my position there and maybe talk about a transfer myself.</p>
<p>Luckily I have a great manager here and they are already on board with me working part-time for them while going to school. Hopefully if I would transfer to AL, my manager can relate my competency to work part-time while going to school there too.</p>
<p>UA seems to be a great opportunity: it has a great accounting program, ranked highly (both undergraduate and law), it’s public so it’ll be cheaper after the first year if I establish residency, and it is in a great area.</p>
<p>It’s good to have some options, so I’ll vigorously investigate all of them over the next couple days and hopefully make a decision about applying by then. I know time is short for the app, but I want to secure some definitive answers to my concerns before taking the plunge.</p>
<p>As always, you’ve been a tremendous help.</p>
<p>feenotype, thanks for the suggestion. I’m still young, both in age and in health care experience. I’ve only ever really had military health coverage, or my current work one, which was easy to set up and is easy to understand. Is an individual policy more complicated? About how expensive would they be (I know that may be subjective), and where should I start looking into them - besides google?</p>
<p>Thanks ahead of time for any info.</p>
<p>^</p>
<p>I think private insurance would be too expensive. My sister has to purchase private insurance, and her premium is over $1k per month…and that’s just for her alone.</p>
<p>^Only problem with the federal preexisting plan is that she would have to be uninsured for 6 months. It would be expensive, but doable as we have enough good family to help us with costs if need be. The only problem there is that we’re not sure how far her prescription for insulin would take us . . . apparently it’s near impossible to get insulin without a prescription in the US. We’re thinking that maybe my wife can work something out with her current doctor to modify the prescription so it would cover her through the 6 months she would be without the ins. . . seems feasible.</p>
<p>That would take us to 2014 and when she could not be denied coverage or have her condition excluded.</p>
<p>Only problem with the federal preexisting plan is that she would have to be uninsured for 6 months.</p>
<p>Dumb question. </p>
<p>She’s covered now, right? </p>
<p>What if you also enrolled her NOW in one of these programs…by the time the 6month time came around, she’d be covered.</p>
<p>Is it ok to have two simulaneous policies…one being used, while the other one is in “waiting” while the 6 month time passes???</p>
<p>If her parents could cover her NOW for a low/free cost until she turns 26, and in the meantime you start this other policy, that might work.</p>
<p>You can’t enroll in those high-risk pool plans until you haven’t had coverage of any kind for 6 months.</p>
<p>I recently purchased an individual plan though ehealthinsurance.com, which is a marketplace for finding plans from different companies, for less than $100/mo that covers four office visits a year and generic prescriptions (and has a $10,000 deductible for emergency room expenses), and I have a sort of a pre-existing condition.</p>
<p>mom2,
She’s covered now through my work and that policy just renewed for 1/1/12. I could look into dropping her from my insurance, but we would have to time it right so that she is without insurance for only the needed 6 and not more than that. 6 would be tough let alone if I try to drop her from mine now and it’s 9+. Then to qualify for the federal preexist program we would have to be in one of the qualifying states, but we’d still be in CA at least until I would start school like 9 months from now. California’s rules for qualifying for a program like that are a little different - and in CA fashion, more complicated. To qualify in AL we would
- Have to get he doctor to write up and sign a letter that she has this condition (not so hard, just ask).
- Sometime apply to an individual plan and as long as they deny her outright or deny covering her condition, then apply.
I don’t think I can get away with applying for the program if I’m doing some switch game with policies, unfortunately. I think I’d have to prove outright that she was uninsured and that she was denied because of her condition.</p>
<p>In any case, I’ve decided to apply to UA tonight and reevaluate the healthcare situation for us if they send an acceptance letter.</p>
<p>feenotype,
the ehealthinsurance.com site looks pretty good actually. Thanks for sharing, we’ll keep that open as a good option too. It says you still have to apply for the policies, though. Did you run into any questions regarding preexisting conditions that may have disqualified an applicant for those?</p>
<p>Yes, you are asked to disclose surgeries and conditions you’ve been treated for in the 12 months previous to applying. Having a pre-existing condition may not necessarily disqualify you from coverage outright; you may be approved with a policy that includes a 12 month waiting period before the treatments related to the pre-existing condition are covered. It would be best to contact eHealth Insurance customer service directly and speak to them about your wife’s condition and see what they think the chances of her being approved for a policy are.</p>