This is a minor rant that I’m pretty sure will get sorted out next week, but I thought it might be interesting especially for those parents new to this issue. I have a rising sophomore and included in her bill for the coming school year is $1890 for the student health insurance. There is a procedure online to request a waiver of the student health insurance by showing you have adequate coverage. But if your deductible exceeds $1K per individual or $2K per family, you need to submit a form signed by the parents acknowledging you are declining the student coverage and promising to pay any uncovered expenses. We have a high deductible plan ($3K per individual, $6K per family). It’s a very good Blue Cross PPO plan and we have an HSA with a significant balance (well in excess of the deductible). We also have another child with high medical costs so every year we satisfy the family deductible by mid-year. We’ve already satisfied the 2016 deductible. Yet our request to waive out of the student plan has been denied twice. The whole procedure is handled online with Ascension, the plan administrator, and no reason is given for the denial. I’ve sent an email to the student affairs office and will call both them and the plan administrator on Monday. But while I fume over the weekend I thought I’d post and see what experiences others have had.
We’ve also had to go through this, for the same reason you did, a (high-deductible BC/BS PPO… But for us, it was just an extra form. The only time they denied us was last year, when my daughter was abroad and being on their health plan was required.
ETA: It’s good that you brought this up. Parents have to waive the student health insurance every single year, and it’s easy to miss! We had to go back and re-figure our tuition payment plan for both kids, because we’d forgotten to waive the insurance.
Something similar happened at the two different schools my kids attended. It had something to do with how the individual vs family deductible was structured on our policy at the time. I was unable to get a waiver through the online system. When I called the school, they were able to authorize the waiver after asking a few additional questions.
Have you checked to see if your PPO has reciprocity with a plan in the state where your D is going to school? I’ve posted elsewhere about avoiding the college health plan by using the Blue Shield Away From Home Care program. Never had a problem.
Actually our D needed to see a specialist during Spring semester. We asked the student health center for a list of specialists, and there were lots on the school’s referral list who were also listed in our online provider directory for out of area providers. We picked one and had no issues with the claims being submitted to our plan. At that point we hadn’t satisfied the deductible but the provider billed us the “reduced” amount allowed by our plan. So she has successfully used this plan both for pharmacy and medical benefits while at college. The only thing that changed from last year was that the deductible went up from 2600/5150 to 3000/6000. I’m expecting to get it waived once I can talk to a real person either at the school or maybe at the plan administrator.
^^ You appear to have a very compelling case. Good luck. Now, chill out this weekend (says the hyper member of his family). 
Does this high deductible rule apply to every college? We have a high deductible and I’ve never heard of this - I have 2 kids in college submitted waiver for 3years now with no problem…both waivers approved this year already … is this new?
Every college has its own rules
We never have a problem with the waiver, but we have a very low deductible.
At my D’s school, the questionaire does not match all the different deductible combinations, so i just answer in a way to qualify. More important is how they will access care. Is the health service in or out of network? At UCLA, health service doesn’t accept outside insurance, but they charge only 12$ a visit. Unless she needs a specialist, she’s going to the student health service.
D goes to the Claremont consortium. The student health service doesn’t charge for a scheduled appointment, but if you walk in without an appointment they charge $15. And they charge for any lab work or medicine they dispense and let you submit the bill yourself to your insurance. Their website says they don’t directly bill any insurance… So we can submit the bill to our BCBS plan as out of network. Also D will have a car and there are urgent care clinics nearby that would accept our insurance. But you’re right that for standard cold, flu type symptoms, or sinus infection (she gets those a lot) she would just go to the student health center.
Update: On Monday morning at 9:30 am I got a response from Pomona student affairs office to my weekend email. One of the perks of a LAC is that you get used to dealing with real people (administrators) who answer their own phones and email, and not faceless bureaucrats, like the Ascension plan administrator. Anyway, a nice person in student affairs assured me that our request for the waiver is being processed “for approval” so it seems that this will all work out.
Happy ending, it looks like!
I’ve done the waiver thing without difficulty but for this thread’s posterity, it’s worth noting that many schools will increase financial aid to cover the insurance if the family’s plan doesn’t qualify (and the student receives FA).
I noticed with my boys (UCLA and Berkeley) that when I didn’t waive the health insurance, they recalculated their financial aid and gave them more money (the exact amount as the cost of the student health insurance). So basically they got the student health insurance for free.
Thanks to various threads on CC, I was very careful last fall when selecting a health plan to make sure that the coverage was nationwide. I waffled between two choices and after multiple calls to the plans, I went with the more expensive plan that would be good anywhere.
I still think it’s a good choice, but I was shocked to discover that DS’ college (Pitt) simply doesn’t care. As in, nope, no waiver form needed. If you need insurance, Pitt can offer it to you but you don’t have to prove to Pitt that you have it. 