New online health insurance form causes confusion

Many students and parents were confused this summer by a new system of processing health insurance waiver forms online. Though the new system will eventually increase the accuracy and ease of the waiver process, glitches and confusion caused a hectic summer for Health Services.

The confusion stems from a combination of a state law and the particular billing process used by the university. Massachusetts state law requires that all full-time college students have health insurance. If students do not have health insurance, they are required to buy a plan offered by the university.

Tufts preemptively bills students for a health insurance plan. "This charge appears on [students'] bill, and people are confused and worried," said Michelle Bowdler, Director of Health Services. In order to have the plan removed from their bill, the student must file a waiver to prove to Health Services that he or she already has health insurance.

"It's unfortunate, because every year -- even if we have information that people have a plan one year, by state law we have to confirm that someone has insurance every year," Bowdler said. "It's one of those things that we try to make as painless as possible."

The new system is a set of online forms that are available on the Health Services website. Previously, Health Services had to mail out and later process paper waiver forms for every student.

"There were 6,000 pieces of mail coming back to us within three weeks," said Bowdler. "Invariably, there would be some errors made where people would say, 'I never got the mailing, and I wanted the insurance', or 'I didn't want it and I sent you the waiver, and even though it's April, you have to take it off my bill.'"

For that reason, Health Services decided to switch to processing forms online. According to Bowdler, the switch was meant to make the waiver process easier for students and for the University. For students, there would not be any confusion over whether they had been waived, and there would not be any possibility of lost paper. The information could easily be included in a computer file that could be quickly sent on to both Health Services and to Financial Services.

"Tufts has had success in their online forms," Bowdler said. Unfortunately, problems arose with the online waiver form. "Students are a lot more comfortable with online processes than parents. Parents were calling us up and feeling very confused. They had become accustomed to the old process."

Bowdler said problems included everything from misunderstanding directions to not having a computer compatible with the form. For that reason, Health Services sent parents a letter with more explicit directions, which, according to Bowdler, resulted in fewer phone calls asking for help.

Bowdler also cited technical problems with the Chickering Group, the insurance company who processed the forms. "To be honest with you, I think that any time you try an improvement, there's going to be some unexpected things that happen the first time you test the system."

One problem involved Chickering upgrading its systems at the exact same time that 500 people attempted to process their waiver forms. "For about a week, those 500 people were lost in the system. It took a week or two to find them and get them taken care of," Bowdler said. For that reason, the company changed their regularly scheduled maintenance times from the afternoon to early morning.

Already, Health Services is working on a way to keep students from having to waive every year. "One of the things we are looking at, is asking people before they leave school, do you know whether you are going to be covered by your parents' insurance, and if the answer is yes, try to get that list before the bills go out," Bowdler said. "That's our goal for next year."

Though there were problems this year, Bowdler still considers the online form a success. "I think that for some people the process was challenging, but I don't think it was a disaster," she said. "Ultimately what I can tell you is that there are going to be fewer errors this year. That is going to make the students happier. I'm asking people to be patient, be understanding, and communicate with us if we have a concern."