If you are covering your kid away at college with a BCBS plan, make sure the plan for the upcoming year includes the national network. Lots of Blues are dropping that national network this year in some of their plans. Especially individually sold plans, but I’d check a corporate provided plan carefully, too. This is NOT intended to trigger a broad discussion of health policy, just a suggestion to check your policy.
Thanks for the info, D will change to individual next year.
Thanks for the info, @intparent. This year, we have Harvard Pilgrim, and we discovered that there are no in-network providers near our daughter’s college. I was planning on switching to BCBS in 2017 for that reason. Now I will double check the network!
Even if providers are available, make sure they’re taking new patients. We had a nationwide BCBS plan based in MA, and there were a lot of providers in my d’s area out of state, but few were taking new patients.
So far that hasn’t been a problem for my D. Urgent cares and hospitals don’t usually turn patients away, and that is mostly what my kid has needed. Except orthopedic surgeon consult when she broke her arm. 
We didn’t have trouble finding one.
We have a second BCBS in our state, so I am going to start with them. Otherwise will look at her school plan, but not sure how that would cover over the summer if she is elsewhere.
We have a BC individual plan. We have found that the network changes from year to year. 1 year it did not cover out of state but this past year it did. The first 3 years she could not find any D in her university town that took her Anthem. Last year the U switched their school plan to Anthem and now almost everyone in her U town is a provider.
I know that our former state’s BCBS announced a few weeks ago that they were dropping the national network for individual plans, and now her current one (different state) did as well. So it seems like a trend…
The individual plan I have my D does not have national coverage as it’s an HMO. However, BCBS (she has the Carefirst subsidiary) hassomething called Away from Home Care (or something similar). Each year you need to register with it and they get a second card that works for the area in which they are living temporarily.
Thanks for the warning about the nationwide coverage. Just last week I had a long conversation with BCBS, confirming that D’s care would be considered in-network despite being in a different state. The rumor mill is saying that the plan will be changing next year, probably not for the better. I’ll be sure to find out about out of state coverage.
So… we went through the application process with the other BCBS provider in our state (we have 2). They do still have the national network as part of their individual plans. Filled out the application. I noticed it asked how much time she is away at school, and that made me nervous. Sure enough, letter arrived today saying they cannot offer coverage because she does not “meet the residency requirements”. But I guarantee you that plans in the state where she goes to college won’t allow her to have a plan because she doesn’t have a driver’s license, etc. there and considers our home state her permanent residence. Grrr…
I’ll call on Monday and see if I can get them to reconsider. I should have bought it through the health care exchange where they don’t actually ask these questions. And now with a denial on file, we probably can’t do that. Fall back plan is her college health plan, but not sure how that will work when she graduates in May and moves who knows where for the summer before grad school. Ugh.
Why not just get BCBS PPO, then you can pick anyone.
In our kids’ two different states, there are NO individual PPO plans.
DD has a POS plan which covers her in other states.
DS has a HMO…no choice at all.
No… you can’t. Individual BCBS companies in each state decide what to offer via their plans in the individual market. This year, many are cutting back on offering ANY plans to individuals (including both those sold directly by the company and via the exchanges) so they do NOT offer the national PPO plan as part of the network for the plan. They are looking a lot more like other health insurance companies that don’t have a national plan. YOU may still have a PPO plan if you get BCBS insurance through your workplace. As I understand it, most BCBS plans offered through workplaces still have that option. But they gutted it out of the individual market plans in many places this year. And many people who buy through the individual market (I do because I run a one person business) who have dependent college students pick the BCBS plans when their kids are out of state. Well… this year, that isn’t working.
For my kids’ first two years of college we lived in MN, and the one MN BCBS provider offered the national PPO network in their individual plans. This year I heard they pulled it out (news came out a couple of months ago). Then when the Washington state provider we used after moving here came out with their individual plans this fall, not too surprised that there were no offerings with the national PPO in them. But we have two BCBS companies in WA, and the second one kept the PPOs. So… tried to enroll kid in one of those. And got the rejection letter today, apparently because she spends too much time out of the region at college.
You would need family PPO, then kids up to 26 can go anywhere. May be worth planning for graduate school and beyond.
However, if there are only out-of-network providers in the user’s area, the PPO will pay less, and the user could be subject to balance-billing since the out-of-network provider is not obligated to limiting the bill to the amount the PPO negotiated with its in-network providers.
If I bought my insurance through them, that COULD work. I don’t, I have a long term COBRA extension from ex-H’s employer (long story). Her dad is retired, and on Medicare now. But even if I did buy my insurance through the BCBS in our state that offers the PPO, they asked the question in the application about EVERYONE on the plan (individually). So my guess is they would have denied her the dependent status, or denied our family as a whole. And with the company she had insurance through for 2016, there are NO PPO options, even for family plans on the individual market.
I work in the health insurance business – I know what the ins and outs of this are.
Does the college offer a health insurance plan?
Yes, that has been my backup plan all along (I always have a backup plan). 
I looked at it when she was a freshman, and for various reasons decided the BCBS plan worked better at the time. Can’t recall the details and the plans change – and she is graduating in May with uncertain plans after that, too. I just printed out all the info and will be reviewing it this weekend. But also just want anyone else using this tactic (BCBS individual market) for a plan for their kid (or their family) to be aware of this trend. It is a significant shift by BCBS companies.
We got caught in that PPO mess a few years ago. In our case, DD had a HMO whichnwas very rich here. She had to establish residency in her new state. Her college stopped offering health insurance because theirs was not ACA compliant.
We’ve had to change plans for her every year since she started college (plans not offered the next year, or we moved, or whatever). I notice that her school plans ends on August 29. Most insurance plans (if they consider you to have a life event so you can get new insurance) start on the first of the month. So it looks like there is a “gap day” potentially there are the end of the school plan, depending on what she moves to. What a headache – single payor, where are you???