The New School switched the university health insurance provider for students to UnitedHealthcare from Aetna, starting this academic year.
Students are dealing with a more complicated waiving process, and some students are facing new expenses, as some providers covered by Aetna are not covered by UnitedHealthcare.
Starting this academic year, students are required to include details of their existing health insurance plans in order to waive the university’s insurance. Some students are having problems being approved to waive UnitedHealthcare. The new student plan costs $2,908 for the full year, compared to $3,015 last year. Faculty at the New School have already been on UnitedHealthcare’s plan.
Although the plan is cheaper, many students have had problems with the waiving process, or with their providers being covered by the new plan.
Cecilia Viveiros, a sophomore at the School of Drama, hasn’t been able to waive the school’s insurance, despite being fully covered on her family’s plan. Last year, her Massachusetts-based health insurance was enough to waive the school’s plan. However, this year, her waiver has been denied.
“Now that it’s changed and they made the exact same insurance unwaivable, it’s actually a lot of money,” Viveiros said.
“I worked super hard to get a bigger scholarship but with the added money that the insurance costs, I’m having to pay basically the same amount yearly — which is super frustrating,” she said.
The university now has an insurance broker: Gallagher Student Health. Gallagher Student Health determines if a student’s insurance is comparable to the university’s plan.
The insurance switch has also caused one student, Maria Allen, a senior at Lang, to alter her plans for the year to continue using the same providers she had under Aetna.
“Now I have to pay out of pocket for a lot of my providers, which I can’t do, because I’m a poor college student,” said Allen.
“I’m trying to figure out how to work full time in order to stay with my provider, because I’m in the process of a treatment that has a standard amount of time to complete. I can’t just change providers,” she said.
The switch seems to have left students like Allen, who are dependent and comfortable with the providers and treatments they already have, in the dark.
“Now I have to lessen services and think about taking a break from the treatment, which is really dangerous. I just don’t know what to do about that and it’s caused a lot of havoc,” Allen said.
In response to problems students are having with their providers, UnitedHealthcare is working on outreach to bring providers in-network, according to Amy Malsin, a university spokesperson.
Students can submit the names of their providers who were covered by Aetna to make sure UnitedHealthcare reaches out to them by filling out an anonymous Google form. UnitedHealthcare is offering current Aetna health providers a special rate to join UnitedHealthcare’s network, according to Malsin.
Some students criticized automatic enrollment, and how it’s on the student to waive the plan.
“It wasn’t confusing but they don’t make it super obvious that you have to waive it. I don’t like how you’re automatically enrolled in it, it should be an option,” said Ani Kapreilian, a sophomore at Parsons.
Ellie Cook, a Lang/Parsons sophomore, assumed her insurance would be waived the rest of her time at The New School since she waived it last year, and since nothing about her family’s plan had changed.
“To hear that it’s more difficult now and that people are having issues makes me worried, because I have things going on in my life that are already out of my control,” said Cook.
“It should be something well under my control as a student here. It shouldn’t be hard. I have insurance that is perfectly fine that I can use but this all makes me a little bit worried,” she said.
The deadline for waiving The New School’s insurance plan is Sept. 9. You can do so here.