Private Health Insurance

All Tufts students (undergraduates and graduates) are required to be covered by health insurance (it’s a Massachusetts state law). All undergraduates and graduate students who are half time or more are billed and enrolled in the student health insurance plan. If you are covered by a separate policy, the policy must be through a U.S.-based insurance company and comparable to the student health plan.

Health Insurance Waiver

If you are covered by a separate policy, please complete the Health Insurance Waiver on your SIS account on the Bills & Balances tab. This waiver process is required every year and is available June 1st - July 31st. Please note, this waiver does not exempt undergraduate students from the mandatory Health and Wellness fee.

Please note: If you are doing a Fall Study Abroad program, you will billed for student insurance in November for the Spring semester. If you have comparable insurance and do not need student insurance you should waive online starting in November until December 31st

For more information about health insurance, contact:

Insurance Coordinator, studenthealthinsurance@tufts.edu
UnitedHealthcare StudentResources, underwritten by Harvard Pilgrim Health Care
Enrolling or waiving the insurance must be done every academic year.
Your private insurance must be comparable in order to waive the insurance charge

Billing for Private Health Insurance

If you have private insurance, please contact your insurance company for specific information about your benefits. You will need your insurance for a few of our services, including lab tests, immunizations, and orthopedic visits and supplies.

Private insurance billing process:

Fees are charged to your tuition bill and are available for your review on your SIS account with 1-2 weeks. To protect your confidentiality, any charges will be listed simply as "Health Service charge" with no further detail.
Once the charge appears on your SIS account, you can download and print your Health Service Statement from the Patient Portal to submit to your insurance company for reimbursement.

Mental Health Coverage

You can find out what your policy covers by calling the number on the back of your health insurance card or visiting the insurance website, which should also appear on your card. You can find out what your mental health benefits cover, if there is a yearly deductible, and if there are limits to your coverage.

Your health insurance company probably provides a list of local “in-network providers” (mental health professionals whose services are covered by your policy) on its website. Look for “behavioral health” specialists and type in your location for a list of nearby providers. If you wish, you can bring this list to CMHS and one of our clinicians will review the names and make a recommendation of who seems best suited to your needs.

Clinical Laboratory Testing

For your convenience, Health Service can draw samples and perform laboratory work on site, even if it is ordered by your private clinician.

Some tests cannot be done at the Health Services Clinical Laboratory. We can collect the specimen and send it to Quest Diagnostics (Quest) for evaluation.

Labs done by Quest are billed directly to the insurance company. Check with your insurance company if you can use Quest is an "in-network" clinical laboratory, to ensure your tests are covered and paid for by the insurance company. If Quest is not an "in-network" provider, ask your insurance company for providers in the area and call the Business Office if you need further assistance.

If you need information about how these services are billed to the insurance company or to the patient, please refer to Billing information or call the Business Office.

If you lose your health insurance coverage...

A change in your situation can make you eligible for a Special Enrollment Period, allowing you to enroll in health insurance outside the "open enrollment period". Examples of Qualifying Life Event (QLE) are:

Losing existing health coverage, including job-based, individual, and student plans
Turning 26 and losing coverage through a parent’s plan
Getting married or divorced
Having a baby or adopting a child
A student moving to or from the place they both live and work.
Becoming a U.S. citizen

If you have lost coverage and would like to enroll in the Student Health Insurance, you can email us your request along with a letter from the insurance company showing you have lost coverage to studenthealthinsurance@tufts.edu.

Confidentiality Protection (PATCH Alliance)

As of April 2018, there is a new Massachusetts law that allows people who are insured on another person’s health plan (like a parent, spouse or partner) to prevent information about any health care services received from going to the subscriber (the parent, spouse or partner). It is called the PATCH (Protecting Access to Confidential Health Care) law. If you need assistance, you can call our Business Office at 617-627-3350.

You can tell the insurance company you want:

To have EOBs (explanation of benefits) sent to you and not to the subscriber
To access your EOBs by paper mailing or through an online portal
Services received to be de-identified, replaced with more generic descriptions (“office visit” instead of “HIV testing”)
To opt-out of receiving these forms at all when there is no cost-sharing (meaning co-pay, deductible, or coinsurance) for the visit.