<p>My D’s undergrad coverage ends 11 days before her grad school coverage kicks in (sigh–of course it does). I see lots of opportunities to buy temporary insurance, including that offered by her current company, but the minimum term seems to be one month of coverage. This isn’t going to break her one way or the other, but I’m just wondering if anyone has ever found health insurance that can be purchased on a weekly or daily basis. (Yet another reason for a single payer system…)</p>
<p>Can you cover her under your insurance for that month? If you already pay for family coverage it may not cost you anything extra.</p>
<p>If, on the unfortunate chance that something happened, couldn’t she retroactively cobra for that period?</p>
<p>H and I have individual coverages–no family option. There appears to be no COBRA opportunity with D’s current insurance, but I’ll dig a little deeper on that. I used to know this stuff cold, but it’s been a lot of years since I managed health coverage for my former employer.</p>
<p>I should add that D takes medication for a pre-existing condition–I’m getting the impression that the gap plans won’t cover pre-existing conditions. But having to pay out of pocket for a couple of prescriptions won’t kill her. The concern is a possible catastrophic event during those 11 days.</p>
<p>After working for a couple of years in the health insurance field, the single most important thing I learned was this: Never, ever, ever go without health insurance!</p>
<p>Pay for the month of coverage. </p>
<p>I saw too many true horror stories when a sudden illness or accident happened during a gap in coverage. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in denied claims because the accident happened at 11PM and the insurance coverage wasn’t effective until the next day…</p>
<p>Oh, I wouldn’t go a minute without coverage–just trying to minimize the cost.</p>
<p>Call the grad school and see if she can do the paperwork and start coverage early.</p>
<p>Maybe she could have one month of alumni coverage at the U where she got her degree?</p>
<p>Is is possible to extend the undergrad coverage for a month? When S1 was in grad school, his coverage stopped over the summer. For some reason, I insisted on buying the summer extension, even though he didn’t eventually continue with grad school. He ended up with appendicitis during that time. That $125 or so payment saved us over $20,000.</p>
<p>We also got S the summer extension and then bought him monthly BCBS coverage until he was able to qualify again under our family policy. I’d ask both the undergrad and grad school if they have any suggestions about covering the gap. For S the gap turned out longer than a year, so glad we followed through on making sure he was always covered.</p>
<p>Have her take a “trip” from School A to School B, and buy travel insurance.</p>
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<p>So, we need an entire government bureaucracy because you don’t want to pay for 1 month of insurance to cover a gap of 11 days?</p>
<p>No it’s because it’s ridiculous that you have to find temporary insurance because everyone is on their own system. Single payer fixes the incredibly stupid and dysfunctional system we have now.</p>
<p>Would you be willing to just get catastrophic insurance for that month? I found dirt cheap plans when I was looking for temporary coverage but they covered next to nothing.</p>
<p>Thanks for the defense, romanigypsyeyes! Yes, my point was that it’s absurd for one person to have to deal with three separate insurance plans over two months–her old one ending in late August, her new one, starting in early September, and one for the interim. I’m well educated and have a lot of experience interpreting insurance lingo, so I can help my D manage the process, but I can’t imagine how someone unsophisticated would handle things. (Well, I do–they’d just take the risk for the 11 days–maybe stay in bed, or under it!) Health insurance is big, complicated and critically important game that people have to play with minimal understanding of the rules. Many other countries do far better than we do. Our system is an embarrassment. That I’m spending a lot of time on this one silly problem is just an example of how dysfunctional it is. Yes, OperaDad, I do indeed want a government bureaucracy to handle a major life problem that affects every citizen and is currently in total disarray. As a poli sci major, I think that’s one of the appropriate functions of government. That big scary bureaucracy works perfectly adequately for those over 65; I’d be thrilled to have it available to everyone.</p>
<p>Yes, I imagine she’ll grab a cheap, catastrophic policy for one month and try to time her prescriptions so they get filled within one of the two other coverages. I’m thinking maybe she can get her doc to write two scripts, one for any meds she needs during the gap, another for when regular coverage resumes, rather than the usual 30-day versions. They costs in the hundreds without insurance, so it does matter.</p>
<p>To answer someone above–I asked, and her current school plan cannot be extended. They just referred me to their general website for alternative coverage. I’ll call the new school, but I imagine their policies are written based on the fixed dates of the school year and can’t be accelerated.</p>
<p>I’ll let you all know how this works out, since my D won’t be the last person to face this kind of glitch.</p>
<p>Good luck–would again suggest contacting her undergrad alumni association, to see what alumni policies are offered. At our kids’ U, there were FAIRLY inexpensive alumni policies & since you’d only need it for less than a month, it might be an option.</p>
<p>Folks pointed us to esurance, but S was rejected for coverage by the one carrier that sold insurance in HI online.</p>
<p>My husband found some cheap month by month plan for S in similar circumstances. I think it was $30/mo.</p>
<p>During the 2 weeks S was at home last fall–covered in France by insurance there but not here–he came down with agonizing stomach pains that turned out to be a gout of severe gastritis, but determining that it wasn’t pancreatitis and that his gall stone didn’t need surgery cost us over $1,000.</p>
<p>OperaDad’s suggestion of taking a trip and buying trip insurance is a good one. It may be cheaper to go away on a vacation than to buy regular health insurance.</p>
<p>An aside about gap insurance…make sure she has insurance for her possessions during the gap also. If she’s covered on your homeowner’s, then no problem. But if she has renter’s insurance, she’ll need something in between. My brother was moving between 2 cities, and had all of his things stolen from his car overnight while he was at a hotel. He’d canceled his old policy the day before, and was going to start his new one the next day.</p>
<p>We bought S a policy that was BCBS during a gap in coverage and it was about $300/month or similar. It gave me peace of mind. I’d ask your insurers as well if they might have some gap policy that would cover your child for that brief window. We were pleasantly surprised that S qualified for the policy, since he hadn’t had our insurance since his birthday the prior November, but they noted he had never had a gap in coverage and had always been covered by BCBS.</p>
<p>OP- for the prescriptions does she have the option of Mail order? Those are usually 90 days.</p>
<p>More suggestions, please! DD is in same situation!</p>
<p>If you incur any medical expenses during this time, save the receipts. We had a situation although not quite the same. When older d began grad school the health insurance was to begin either August 15 or Sept 1, cannot remember exactly however her university was switching health care providers and so there was a huge delay in getting the insurance cards and information out to the students and those covered. </p>
<p>While without the information, D woke up with conjunctivitis on a Saturday morning. She took a class that met on Saturdays sometimes in NY and sometimes in Philly to tour artist studios and galleries. Ishe was in an MFA program). She could not get to the student health center in Philly in time to leave for NY but I was able to get my pediatrician who she hadn’t actually seen in a few years to call in a prescription without seeing her because she wouldn’t be able to get to where we live from lower Manhattan before their office closed on Saturday and they wouldn’t have any Sunday hours. I picked up the prescription and paid full-price because she had no insurance information… but I saved all the receipts and when she did have the information a few weeks later she was able to submit the paperwork, so at least the cost of the prescription either went to the deductible or was partially reimbursed-cannot remember now. </p>
<p>I would think that the undergrad policy would have either Cobra or some kind of extension but if not, I do like the idea of a travel policy if that is something you can get.</p>