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| Health Insurance and Going to College | |
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When preparing
your child for college, aside from visiting the campus, taking the SAT,
selecting a place to live, etc, one thing that should not be overlooked
is selecting a health plan. Usually,
the parent’s health plan will cover their children between the ages of
20 and 24 years old. There
are sometimes conditions to meet for a child to qualify, such as the
child must be financially dependent on the parents and the child must be
enrolled in units considered to be a full time student. Also, if
the dependent child is 25 or older or at least 18 but decides not to go
to college, and if the parent's plan is a group plan, the dependent may
be eligible to continue on the plan by utilizing COBRA.
If you don’t
have a health plan, often there is a health plan available at the
college your child is attending. Sometimes
colleges require health care coverage as part of enrollment. There is usually an additional cost to subscribe to this
plan, and considering how expensive tuition is these days, many do not
consider paying for this additional cost.
However, it may be worth it, you can’t always predict an injury
or illness. The costs and
benefits vary widely among colleges. Whether you have a health plan now or are looking into obtaining an individual health plan for your child, you should do your research and compare costs and available benefits. Things you should consider: what is the typical copay/deductible, what medical treatment is covered (labs, xray, visits, surgery, dental), is there a pre-existing limitation, is your child covered when they go home (in state of out of state), do they have access to a specialist, is the plan a PPO or HMO, are there limitations on what medical providers they can see, is emergency treatment covered, are they covered during summer break, etc. If you would like to search for a health plan for your College bound son or daughter, please click here for a free quote.
Health Symphony provides information as a general resource and does not guarantee any results, expressed or implied, obtained from its use. |
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