Reader question:

I’m going on spring break this spring. Normally I’m insured through my school, but do I need a different health insurance for this?

July

Depends.

I think the first step for you would be to ask your school’s health insurance provider what their rules are for traveling while insured. Most school plans will at least cover you if you go home over break or during the summer. It depends on the school, but that might cover you regardless of where in the country you go. However, if you plan on traveling outside of the country for spring break, then that is a whole other story.

A lot of insurance companies for travel health insurance have certain plans for young people every year around the time for spring break. There’s nothing exactly for college and university students, usually, but a lot of times the plans are offered for people under thirty. One extremely cheap options is from Travel Guard Insurance, which has a program for people in their twenties and under which can cost from $29 on up for every trip. The cost of the insurance is dependent on the cost of the trip, but you only pay one time per trip.

One travel health insurance plan that might be particularly appealing to young people traveling during spring break, or even for any other break, is the Lifeguard plan offered by Champion health insurance. This costs about $47 for a trip averaging around fifteen days in length, and if you plan on doing anything risky, such as white water rafting or mountain climbing, you can add on a high risk provision for 15% more, averaging at $54. Champion’s CEO states that his company wants to raise awareness of the need for travel insurance when going on vacations or any other trek out of the country, because many people aren’t aware of not being covered while traveling.

There are a bunch of things that you will need from a travel insurance company that are usually offered. This things include provisions for if your trip ends up being cancelled midway, emergencies, delays in your travel plans, and losing your things through the airport. You might figure that coverage isn’t necessary, but you never know what you will need. Your insurance company should also have a all day all night help line which you can call from anywhere in the world to ask questions about your coverage.

If you get travel insurance, you should make sure that you are covered for being transported back to the U.S. in the case of your death. It’s not something you want to think about, but it’s always a possibility, and no one knows when they’re going to die. If you die in another country, they have no obligation to follow the traditions of your country or to send you back, and transporting a body can be expensive.

Most of all, just make sure that you make yourself safe for your trip, know where to go for medical help wherever you are at, and have fun!

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.

If you intend to go out of the country and get travel health insurance to cover you while you’re away, you will need to put more care and research into your coverage than you would with a normal health insurance plan. Why is that? Because you will be so far away from home that if something goes wrong, you will be basically helpless. In order to protect yourself while you’re away, you need to know that you have a health insurance company that you trust.

One important thing that you have to look into are the credentials of your travel agent. Find out if the company that you’re going with is certified. Ask if they have a certified travel counselor working there. A CTC is someone who has studied to be in the business for an extended period of time. It’s the same reason why you would want a certified nurse to hook you up to an IV.

Don’t forget the background check. One of the most important things is making sure that your institution is financially stable. Check with credit agencies for its history. Also, look into consumer complaints. Find out how it really handles people who come into trouble while they are outside of the country. Call the Better Business Bureau and see how they would rate your travel health insurance company.

Your agent may make a lot of promises, but remember that nothing is true unless you get it in writing. They can make as many promises as they want, but you won’t be covered for them. Either have them put it into your written plan, or don’t take the promise into mind when making a decision. You should be positive that things such as total cost are in there, as well as additions or changes made in the last minute.

Finally, pay for your insurance and your trip with a credit card. Having proper records of all your transactions can help you avoid being the victim of insurance fraud, or being the victim of fraud while you are away.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.

KCHIP, or the Kentucky Child Health Insurance Program, is a version of health insurance for Lexington and the rest of the state of Kentucky that is sponsered by the state and provides coverage for eligible children. KCHIP is not only for when a child has an emergency, but it also useful for helping prevent future problems by going to the doctor for well check ups and receiving vaccinations. It is for children in Kentucky who are unable to afford medical health insurance, but who are also unable to qualify for Medicaid.

To get started with KCHIP, you need to fill out an application. In order to do this, you will have to go to an eligibility office in your area. These offices are usually open from eight to five, and if you don’t know where one is, you can look it up in the phone book. You need to remember what you should take with, which is:

• two months worth of pay stubs for every working person that lives with you
• if you have any other type of income, such as Social Security, take the last award letter.
• proof that you have childcare with receipts from the daycare or nanny
• medical insurance info, but only if your kid had insurance at least si months ago

If your child was insured at some point within the past six months, there is certain information that you need to provide. This information includes what the company that insured your child was called, what plan your child had, and what the number of your policy or group was. You also need to provide the dates in which the policy was in effect, the person whose name is the main one on the policy, and anybody else whose name is on the policy.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.

There are several offices in Lexington for health insurance by KCHIP, and once you have dropped off your application to insure your child with KCHIP, then there will be a process that will be followed. These offices tend to be busy, so if you want to see a case worker that same day, you should either go early and plan on waiting, or just drop off your application and expect a call from your case worker. Once you get called in or called back by the case worker, they will ask you a number of questions in order to determine whether or not your child is eligible for KCHIP and, if so, then for what kind.

While you are in the office with the case worker, you will also be able to ask questions and request that he or she provide you with information about the program. It is now that is the best time to find out as much as you can about the child health care plan that your kid will be provided with, because while there are many health insurance companies that have open call lines for you to ring up and ask questions about your plan, it’s not so easy when you are getting your insurance from the government, so you should take advantage for this opportunity for clarification.

If the application or the interview do not satisfy, that doesn’t mean that your child will not be able to qualify for KCHIP. The case worker who gives you the interview is going to request that you bring back extra information so that they can determine your case. This can be frustrating, but just bear with it. If you don’t have the extra information back within ten days, then your kid won’t be able to get KCHIP, so make sure you turn it in on time.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.

Since there are so many offices in Lexington that deal with KCHIP, it probably won’t take you very long to receive a letter with either your approval or denial for KCHIP Lexington health insurance. If you are denied, don’t worry too much. You can always try again, and the letter will tell you why exactly your child was not eligible. If you are approved, though, you will get a letter stating so and it will also tell you whether or not you owe a premium. If you do owe one, you won’t have to pay it right away.

If your approval letter states that you will have to pay a premium, wait then for the bill that will arrive from the Premium Payment Center. You can’t pay until you get this bill. You can’t send in the payment without the bill, and you absolutely cannot give the payment to your case worker, because they aren’t allowed to accept them. Not everybody has to pay a premium. It’s really only for people who still managed to qualify for KCHIP, but who were near the top of the eligibility bracket. The first time that you have to pay your premium it will be double the amount, but that will be the only time that you have to pay so much. The reason is that premium payments for KCHIP have to be made in advance.

If you want to take a few dollars off of your bill for KCHIP, then you can pay three months at a time, which comes out to $54 for most families. If you pay this way, it is cheaper. You should always make sure to send in your payment for your KCHIP premium ASAP. You get the bill one day, you send it out the next. They give you two months to make the initial payment and still qualify, but if you don’t pay within that time, then your child will not get KCHIP and will not be sent an insurance card, so make sure to get your payment out as soon as possible.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.

If you are unable to pay your premium for KCHIP, then you will have to go to the nearest Lexington health insurance office and try again, which will start the process all over, with another application, interview, and everything. You can still get approved after defaulting on a premium, but since it is such a hassle and having health insurance coverage is so important, it should be avoided at all costs. To make sure you pay on time, remember that premiums are do on the 5th every month.

Even if you do take a while to make a premium payment, but still pay it on or before the due date for the first payment, your child will still be covered during that time although you may have to be reimbursed and make the payment for their treatment initially. If your child gets approved, then his or her coverage begins that same day that you applied at the office, even if you weren’t approved yet. So if you had to take your kid to the doctor or hospital while waiting for approval, that is covered, too.

If you are sending the payment through mail, then you need to take precaution to send it at least a week ahead of time, so that the office has plenty of time to receive and process the payment before the due date. If you mail it on the due date, then your child will likely lose his or her coverage. The amount isn’t too much–every family pays twenty dollars a month, whether they have two kids or eight. If you don’t pay your premium, then you will have to pay twenty dollars more in order to apply again for coverage for your child.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.

Medicaid is one of the easier types of federal assistance to get, but it still disqualifies many families who are unable to provide health insurance for their children. The number of families without child health insurance in Lexington, Kentucky is particularly high, and that is why the state program, KCHIP, exists to help families who fall through the Medicaid gap receive assistance for their children. The decision of who is and isn’t eligible for KCHIP depends on the age of the children involved and how much their parents make. You don’t have to be below the poverty level to qualify your kids for KCHIP–the cap is 200% of the poverty level.

An example of a family who is 200% of the federal poverty level is a family with two adults and two kids that brings home slightly over forty thousand every year. There are different requirements for the number of people in every family. If you have a family of five people, the cap is $48,260. For six, it is $55, 220. For seven, it is $62,180. If you have more children than that, contact your KCHIP office that is local to find out what the maximum income for your family size is. The income, you should be aware, is based on how much you make every year before taxes are taken out, not what you actually bring home.

The income limits for KCHIP don’t always remain the same, as they have to be adjusted for inflation and changes in wages. If you are unsure of your income, make sure that each April you check and see what the new limits are so that you don’t waste time applying only to find out that your are ineligible.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.

Many children are provided with health insurance by their parents or through their parents’ employer, but many times that health insurance is less than perfect. Child health insurance often does not cover the types of things that children need most, and if you have only partial insurance coverage, you may want to get assistance from the state of Kentucky to help you supplement that coverage so that your child does not go without. Unfortunately, you can’t get KCHIP if your kid is already insured, no matter how sparely. What you can do is apply for Medicaid.

If you choose to cancel your insurance policy and get KCHIP, then your child may have to wait six months before they can receive child health insurance coverage through this state insurance plan. This will never be the case for families who make little enough to qualify for KCHIP and not be required to pay a premium. However, if you are trying to insure a previously covered infant and your income is at least 186% of the federal poverty level, then you will have to wait six months. The same applies to any child up to the age of eighteen whose family makes at least 156% of the federal poverty level. If you lost your insurance in circumstances that you could not take charge of, you can get this waiting period waived.

There are children who may have been previously insured but who do not need to wait, nor pay a premium, in order to receive KCHIP. They are able to be insured as soon as they are approved, regardless of how they came to be uninsured. These children include those between the ages of one and five whose parents make at least 134% of the federal poverty level, and at least 150%; and kids between six and eighteen whose parents make at least 101% and at most 150%.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.

Once you have KCHIP, you can’t just take it for granted and plan to do nothing else from then on. Sure, there the monthly premium payments for some families, but the plan requires a bit more upkeep than that. In order to make sure that you are still eligible, Kentucky requires you to apply over again each year to determine if you can qualify for state provided child health insurance. This application process is a lot easier than the one that you had to go through in the first place, but it still requires quite a bit from you.

The month that falls before the last month of a twelve month period, the KCHIP office will send you a renewal form in the mail. You will have to fill out this renewal form with your family and your child’s current information, not the information used to apply in the first place. You will have to state and prove current income and any type of current insurance that is not KCHIP, even if it is not for the child.

You can’t just mail the renewal form in, though, sadly. You have to go up to a local DCBS office on or before the first day of the twelveth month of coverage. You will also be required to bring certain documents that you had to bring before, such as paycheck stubs for two months, in order to prove that the family is still at an income level where they need child health insurance coverage through KCHIP. If you don’t make it in by the first, that is not your last chance. A final notice will be mailed to you that will provide you with instructions of how you are still able to renew your child’s coverage. If you lose or ignore this final notice, your child will lose his or her coverage at the end of the twelveth month.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.

Sometimes even the twenty dollar per month premium required by the Kentucky Child Health Insurance Plan is too much, and you can lose your coverage for your child by either failing to pay the premium or failing to renew the coverage at the end of the twelve month cycle. When you do this, you will have to go to a local DBCS office to reapply for KCHIP coverage. Your coverage is not immediately canceled after missing one payment, but rather immediately after you miss your second payment. If you manage to apply the same day that you lose your coverage, there will be no gap.

If you lose your coverage, you will owe $20 of past due premium payments. If you make this payment, then you will be able to reapply.You don’t have to wait any certain amount of time to reapply after you have made the past due payment. The same process goes for when you reapply, and you will have to double the premium pay for the first month and it must be made within two months of your receipt of the premium payment bill.

If the reason that you couldn’t afford to pay the last premium was because of a significant change in finances, then it’s possible that you may be eligible for Medicaid instead of KCHIP. If this is the case with you, then you should try applying for Medicaid instead of KCHIP. If you get aproved to receive Medicaid assistance for your child, then you don’t have to pay the past due KCHIP premium. If you don’t, though, you are required to pay it for the next twelve months. If that much time passes, then you can re apply for KCHIP without paying the past due amount.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.