A new health insurance plan available to students this fall will consolidate three previous plans and provide expanded coverage.
The new plan is available to undergraduate students taking at least three credits and graduate students taking at least one credit, according to a press release issued by Penn State’s University Health Services.
The plan will cover prescriptions and preventative services from UHS at 100 percent cost with no deductible.
Offered through Aetna Student Health Insurance, the new plan will cost $2,137 for the school year, Manager for Student Health Insurance at Penn State Karen Kline said.
Coverage will last from August 10 to August 9, 2013, Kline said. The deadline for fall enrollment is September 11.
Kline said coverage is also available for individual fall and spring semesters.
“It’s our mission to provide affordable health care services to college students,” Aetna Spokesperson Matt Wiggin said, adding that students’ health is important to academic success.
Wiggin added that the health care plan runs year-round so students traveling in the United States or at home for the summer will have access to the Aetna network, available in all 50 states with over one million providers. Coverage options are available for students traveling abroad.
“This plan honestly gets rid of all of the issues that I’ve had in the past with our student health plans, and I think its just going to be such a step above [the old plan] for all of our students with what we’re going to be offering them,” Kline said.
Previously, students were not covered for two office visits in the same day, Kline said. This created problems for students who needed to see their physician and a specialist.
Previously, there was a $20,000 limit on coverage for life-flight services, which frequently left students in debt since it costs about $17,000 “just to get the helicopter off the ground,” Kline said. Additional life-saving services provided in the air regularly put the total cost above $20,000.
With the new plan, students are covered for multiple doctors in one day, and there is no coverage cap on the cost of these services, Kline said.
“We worked very closely with the school to tailor a plan,” Wiggin said. “We work very closely with campus health care centers and our provider network.”
The new health care plan is expected to meet all of the requirements of the 2014 Affordable Care Act, according to the release.
“This plan is a terrific plan. Students that do enroll in it are going to have the coverage that is required by healthcare reform in 2014,” Kline said. “It’s available now.”
