Health Insurance Help Chicago IL

Reader’s Question:

Before my daughter left for college out-of -state, I purchased the university’s student health insurance plan for her and kept her old one which was under my in-state health insurance plan. Now, the problem is, when she used our health insurance plan in her school she needs to travel quite a distance to see her doctor. Number 1, she doesn’t have a car. Number 2, even if the school has an on-site clinic, she has only gone to the clinic once within almost 2 years. However, this winter quarter, she got really sick for a few days. Some of her assignments due dates could be delayed. What should I do? We live in Chicago IL.

Susan

Chicago, IL

Thanks for asking, Susan.

I had the same problem before. I have a Kaiser, and this is how we attacked this same kind of problem. My son attended college in Chicago. We fly him home on some weekends to see dentist, lab work, dermatology, primary physician, orthodontist, or whatever medical needs he needs. What he does is to notify his professors that he will be having a 3 day weekend, either missing classes on a Friday or a Monday. Meanwhile, when he’s back in Chicago, like there was this one time he had to go to the emergency room and missed classes since he had to wait for his doctor for hours. Kaiser only cover E.R and urgent care outside their providers (accredited hospitals and doctors) and Pharmacy bills can be reimbursed through proof of purchase like receipts for all claims.

I love Kaiser in the sense that it reimbursed all my pharmacy claims…though it took a while since my son forgot to mail the receipts directly to Kaiser Claims and mailed it to us instead. Fortunately, I was able to resolve the issue after ½ of a year…just because of that one mistake. By now, I kinda understand how things should be done for claims, such as making sure my son keeps his receipts. There are kinks of course in certain incidents when you cannot fly your daughter out for medical. At one point, my son got hit by a car, and couldn’t fly out, so everything had to be on us for that case. So that’s just one disadvantage if you choose to keep your in-state health insurance policy.