Health insurance for college kid

I haven't done this yet for my own kid, but working in HR I helped out other people. Basically you contact the (non-Kaiser) carrier to tell them that your child is in college in X city, and depending on your type of plan, the carrier will either reassign them to a primary care physician in that city, or tell you that as long as the doctor/facility takes the insurance you don't need to do anything. For Kaiser, be aware that Kaiser is not available everywhere and it may not work for your child to have non-emergency appointments during the school year at all. Check the websites for Blue Cross and Kaiser and there will be forms to fill out to report that your student is away from home. Another option is to take them off of your plan and put them on the college's plan.

Hi there,

We recently dealt with this issue. I think most colleges offer health care insurance that’s included as part of their student fees. You can sign a waiver to save some money if you don’t need the coverage. We have Kaiser and the state where my son goes to college doesn’t have Kaiser (FL). It’s a pain in the butt to deal with that. In addition, I compared the cost for him to be covered with us on our family plan or solo with the school’s plan, and it was pretty much even. So we took him off our plan and paid for him to have the school’s insurance (United Health Care PPO). 

One of my friends’ daughters went to a school in SoCal and they just kept her on their Kaiser family plan, since SoCal has Kaiser options too.

You can get health coverage information from the schools to which your son is applying, just so you have an idea of what your options are before he decides where he’s going. Hope this helps.

US colleges will require that atudents provide proof of health insurance. Their default, if they don't receive adequate proof of insurance is to put students on the University's health care plan, which costs toughly $3k a year. You need to check coverage areas once you know where your student will be attending college, as not all plans (including Kaiser) are accepted at all campus locations. It is important to know the locations of local hospitals and Urgent health Care Centers that accept your students health insurance plan as many student health care centers on campus don't accept all plans and are not open 24x7. I created a short listing of health center phone numbers for my student that was pasted to the back of his dorm room door to make it easy for him to locate the information when needed. Good luck, Elaine 

We have Kaiser, and covered my son's emergency treatment at a non-Kaiser hospital when he was away at college in a location where there were no Kaiser facilities. He was only a 4hour drive away so the one time he got pretty sick but non-ER level I went and got him. If your son is going far away, he might need supplemental insurance that should be available low cost through his college, depending what the situation is with student health clinic at the college.

When our daughter first went to college in New York City, we were on a Kaiser plan we got through Covered California, and we were dismayed to find out those plans offered NO coverage outside of the Northern California service area. Fortunately, by her sophomore year, I had gotten a job that provided a Kaiser plan that does pretty much completely cover any care she gets in NYC. So since then she gets  routine check-ups when she is home, urgent care at her college health center, and in one case where she did go to the emergency room, it was covered with I think a $150 deductible. She is able to email her doctors and fill many prescriptions by mail; anything else she picks up when she's home on visits or we bring when we go see her. It has worked well, but that first year was nerve wracking; she is a pretty healthy kid with no chronic health issues, but at one point we were afraid that a complication from getting her wisdom teeth out would send her to the ER in New York and it would be all out of pocket for us. So, in our experience, Kaiser is great unless it's a Covered California plan. I briefly investigated individual health plans in New York and they were all very expensive. A friend whose daughter goes to school in Chicago got her a very reasonable individual plan, but by two years the premiums had tripled, so it seems trying to keep them on the family plan makes sense. Hope this helps.

Most colleges provide health insurance for their undergraduate students

I work at UC Berkeley at the Tang Center (student health services). UC Berkeley is big enough that they have a Student Health Insurance Program (SHIP), and students are required to enroll (few thousand dollars per year in cost) or prove comparable insurance. Here's the problem: lots of students opt to go on their parent's insurance to save money--great idea! Except: parents don't give their kids lessons in how to use their insurance or what to do in case something happens. I see this especially with Kaiser--the closest Kaiser to campus is all the way in Oakland which can be difficult when these students don't have cars. So, they end up here at the Tang Center, and we take care of them emergently, of course! But, if it requires follow-up care, or a referral to a specialist, or on-going care--it becomes more difficult. There are lots of things that can go wrong in that age group of people--autoimmune diseases bloom around then, or maybe they need some mental health support to help with their big change in life, or maybe they twist their ankle/break a bone and need follow-up care. Don't make the mistake of thinking that nothing will happen while they are gone and they can just see their regular docs when they are home for well visits! Give them a lesson in how health insurance works. Have them set up with at least a Primary Care doc in the town where they are a student (they are there a majority of the year!) Or, if you can swing it--buy the campus insurance so it is easier for us to take care of them. 

Most colleges and universities have their own plans, which are often mandatory unless you have other coverage.  You may want to defer making a change until you know where your son is going to college.  For us, Blue Shield was fantastic, because their Away From Home Care [AFHC] program (which is designed for exactly your situation) operated in New Hampshire, where our daughter went to school.  It does not have coverage in all states, however.  If you can use it, I would highly recommend it.  She had her own primary care physician there, and the only thing we had to be careful about was to let them know when she was in New Hampshire and when she was in California so that the proper coverage would apply.  I have to say that the AFHC people were some of the nicest and most helpful insurance folks I have ever dealt with. 

I have two kids in college. One up at Sonoma State, and one at Portland State.  We have Kaiser.  Both colleges actually provide very basic healthcare coverage for students that is covered via fees in the tuition. Both kids tend to go the the school's health center for most basic things (flu shots, antibiotics, stomach bugs, some prescriptions, general wellness, etc). PSU actually required us to prove we had healthcare (for emergency coverage), otherwise they would have forced us to purchase a plan up in Oregon for my daughter. Kaiser happens to be up in Portland.

When the kids come home for holiday/summer breaks, they still go see their primary care doctors under Kaiser for checkups, etc.  My son uses Kaiser up in Santa Rosa for his allergy shots, and medications associated with allergies.

I think assuming that your child will use a combination of both (school + health plan) is probably the way to go - also taking into consideration where she/he ends up going to college. Kaiser isn't on the east coast - so they're not really ideal, but they do cover emergency visits anywhere. Blue Shield providers are everywhere.

Good luck!