Blue Cross and Blue Shield ends coverage each year on July 31. The next cycle of coverage begins Aug. 1, but students have reported difficulty using their insurance.
“Students are legally covered by insurance because the start date is Aug. 1,” Brandon Linz, president of the Graduate and Professional Student Federation said. “But because they are not officially enrolled in the insurance, they have to pay out of pocket, and get reimbursed by Blue Cross Blue Shield.”
Linz said that this issue has been happening for several years and when the same thing happened in the 2014-15 coverage year, the reimbursement process took three to six months.
“If you have several thousand dollars of medical bills on a TA stipend — and you live at the poverty line — that’s impossible to do,” Linz said.
There were 3,259 research and teaching assistants with an additional 153 dependents enrolled in the Graduate Student Health Insurance Program last year, according to an email from Kenneth Pittman, chief operating and financial officer for Campus Health Services. The program is separate from the insurance used by other graduate students and undergraduates.
As of August 19, 2,400 graduate assistants have been enrolled in the 2015-16 plan, wrote Pittman.
Linz said there is an emergency fund to cover medical expenses, but it is rapidly depleting and communication from the University on the matter has been limited.
“We received one notification after the information I sent out to the student body, and it essentially was a reiteration of that,” Linz said. “We have no interaction with Blue Cross Blue Shield other than as a provider.”
