The Questions column will appear weekly on myPICCLine.com. You are invited to submit questions here.

Q: I recently graduated college and other young people am struggling to find a job. At what point does health insurance from my mother’s employer lapse? What can I do now if it has lapsed?

As a full-time college student, you were covered under your mother’s plan. Before getting into details understand there is a ton of variation from plan to plan, from state to state. Some plans go by age of the dependent(you), and may be a grace period may be longer than your aware, it takes a call to your parent’s insurer to get the particulars. If your health insurance was terminated upon graduation, then your coverage is gone and you have now earned been branded in the system as someone who has a “lapse in coverage.” Depending on if you have any pre-existing conditions this may or may not be a huge deal. Many policies exclude those who have a history of illness or ailment prior to purchasing a plan, a pre-existing condition in insurance terminology. If your healthy this is less of a problem, but it is worthwhile to note that when you do land a full-time job or buy an individual plan, if you become seriously ill there are potential issues.  If your illness occurs during the first 12 months of the policy’s activation it will qualify as a  pre-existing condition giving the insurer the opportunity to dump the treatment bill on you.

The first thing to do now is get health insurance, and tell your friends to never let their insurance lapse. The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act( COBRA) is one option, if your parent’s employer qualifies—stipulations may apply. For example, if your mother’s employer has less than 20 employees COBRA may not be an option. Once again this depends on you contacting your parent’s employer. Which allows you to continue to receive insurance through your mother’s employer for 36 months. The negative side is you will not have the benefit of sharing some of the cost with the employer. You will  be paying an individual rate, rather than family rate, which will bring down the cost somewhat.

A temporary health insurance policy is another option. Coverage may vary from one to six months, althoughsome plans will let you renew for up to 36 months. These temp policies are reserved for major incidents—catastrophic occurrence, surgery, some plans may even cover diagnostic studies—but the routine checkups are going to be entirely out-of-pocket.  All non-emergency care will require pre-certification. The deductible is very high, but the monthly payments are low. Life altering illness that requires prolonged treatment will leave you broke. For instance, if your bone marrow fails and you’ve bought a one or two month temporary policy, as soon as that expires coverage will be dropped and you are left holding the bill for your treatment. To regain coverage you can reapply or renew your old plan—but your failed bone marrow will now be considered a pre-existing condition and even with an renewed plan you will still be footing that entire medical bill.

Catastrophic coverage is also an option. This isn’t a plan for anyone with any kind of heath issues, prescriptions and doctor visits are going to cost you. But if something terrible is to happen, after you pay your high deductible—for instance if the deductible is $4,000 and you need a 10,000 dollar surgery, you’re paying the first four grand out of pocket.

The best advice I can give is the boring, be an active reader throughout the process—read the fine print, know exactly what you’re buying and question anything you don’t understand. The information is all out there, it’s up you to collect and dissect it.”

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