New Students

For Prospective and Newly Accepted Students

Welcome to the Joseph B. Trainer Student Health Service website. The staff of the Joseph B. Trainer Student Health Service looks forward to serving you.

Before you come to OHSU your program will inform you of some health-related requirements that must be met before you arrive, including immunizations that you need to have done before you arrive, and the required student group health insurance, the coverage for which will start before you arrive for the first day of class. (In addition, there are two other forms we request below that you send us.) This is complicated, and there are deadlines, and you will need to attend to these details now. You will find all the information and forms you need on this website. The Student Health Service does not make these policies, but we administer them and do our best to help you understand them.   Please read the next four sections carefully and download and send us the necessary forms after you have filled them out carefully.   Finally, if you have family members read the fifth section regarding your options (and deadlines) for enrolling them in these two benefit programs, student group insurance and student health service.

At the time you will be working on these things and sending us forms, you are likely not here at OHSU yet.   We do not know who you are. Please try to make it clear to us as we receive these things, and prepare for your coming, who you are, your most current address, which program you will be in, etc.

1. Pre-entrance immunizations.   This University is an academic medical center.   Before you start your OHSU program you will need to meet all the CDC immunization guidelines for health care workers. If all students and employees at OHSU are up to date, OHSU is a safer place for our most vulnerable patients.    These specific guidelines do change from time to time, and are listed on this website under the heading Pre-entrance Immunizations. At that page you can download the Immune Status Form, and another form called Plan to Complete Form which you can use in two ways:   as a worksheet guide to what you need, and as a communication device to let the Student Health Service know where you stand in the process. You will need to gather whatever information you have on all prior immunizations and see to it that you are up to date on all the requirements before you arrive for class. The requirement for Hepatitis B (3 shots and an antibody titer) takes 7 months to complete if you have to start from scratch. If you haven’t completed this part (or any part) of the immunization requirement by the time school starts, be sure you have submitted the Plan to Complete Form so we know where you are in this process. The Student Health Service is responsible to OHSU for the surveillance of your immunization status, collects this data from you, and reports to your school when you have completed these pre-entrance requirements. You will not be able to start a clinical program until you have completed these requirements.

Please note that these services are a pre-entrance requirement. Please get started now on updating your immunization profile to meet the requirements of OHSU which are meant to provide a safe environment for students and employees and patients at OHSU and participating clinical and research training sites.

Please do not wait until you arrive at OHSU expecting to get these services at the Student Health Service. Although the Student Health Service can provide these services for a fee, the Student Health Service does not charge less than the community for these services.   In fact, our charges for these pre-entrance requirements may actually be higher than those at other clinics in the community. Probably the lowest cost for these pre-entrance immunizations is at your own physician’s office or at the public health department in your community. If you go to the “prices” heading on the immunization web page of this website, you can see what the cost would be (when last updated) if you come to the Student Health Service for some or all of the pre-entrance immunizations and tests. This will enable you to do some comparison pricing by telephone to other clinics.

2. Group Health Insurance. (This does not apply to Paramedic or Clinical Lab Science students from OIT, nor does it apply to 4th year OSU Pharm.D. students. If you are a part-time student of the School of Nursing see below, “Less Than Part-time students.”)   OHSU enrolls you automatically into the student group ODS health insurance plan. You may review the information about this insurance program elsewhere (Health Insurance) on this website, but the following remarks pertain particularly to students who have recently been accepted:

This insurance is effective on the first day of the month in which your program starts. In some cases this may actually be prior to your arrival on your campus.
However, it may take up to 3 weeks for the health insurance wallet card to get to you. The insurance company, ODS, will be provided the address that you gave the school when you first applied. If you think that address might delay your getting your card, email the better address to us at askshs@ohsu.edu, or call the Student Health Service (503.494.8665) so that we can provide the insurance company a better address for you. In the meantime, on or after that first day of the month in which your classes begin, if you seek health care services or fill a prescription you may temporarily need to pay for the service and apply for reimbursement from the insurance company. The staff of the Student Health Service will help you if during this early period, when you are covered, but don’t have a card, you need help verifying your coverage.

If you already have health insurance coverage that you want to continue while you are here as a student, you must apply for a waiver. There is a deadline: the completed waiver application must be received in this office before the first day of the month in which your program starts. You will note that this may be, depending on your program, up to several weeks before you start school. The day after this deadline, the first day of the month in which your program starts, is the day the insurance becomes effective. If you are going to apply for a waiver, you must therefore plan ahead. If this applies to you, be sure to go to the insurance section (Health Insurance) of this website to review the waiver application criteria. As you will learn by carefully reviewing that information, not all individual or family health coverage insurance policies meet the criteria for the waiver (for example, it must be a group not an individual plan, and if you are not sure what kind you have, you will need to ask your insurance company).

Late waiver applications. If your insurance does qualify, and if you are going to apply for a waiver from the student group plan, be sure to get the waiver application in so it is received in the Student Health Service office by or before the deadline (before the first day of the month in which your program starts.) You may fax the application and required supporting documents, but do not trust that the postmark is sufficient. However you send it, if it does not arrive by the deadline, it cannot be approved, even if it meets the criteria, until a month later. If the application arrives on or after the first day of the month in which your program starts (i.e., after the deadline), even if it is approved, it will not take effect until the beginning of the next month, and you will still be charged for the student insurance for the first month in which your classes begin.   If the application arrives in time, but is found to be incomplete, then it will not be approved, pending completion.   Until it is completed, if necessary you will be automatically enrolled in the required ODS student group health insurance plan.

Note that every approved waiver expires at the beginning of fall term.   If you start your OHSU program at fall term this means you will need to re-apply for the waiver before the first day of fall term one year later.   However, if you start your OHSU program at any other time, the waiver will expire in less than a year, always at the beginning of fall term.

Changing your student status:   “Less than Part-time” Students of the School of Nursing—a special case.   Beginning with fall term 2007, students in the School of Nursing who are enrolled in four or less graduate level credit hours, or 5 or less undergraduate level credit hours are considered “less than part time” and are not required to carry and will not automatically be enrolled in, nor will they be billed for the student group health insurance premium.   Thus, at this “less than part time” level no waiver is required, since the insurance is not required (or available.)    Students taking 5 or more graduate level hours and 6 or more undergraduate hours will be required to carry the student group health insurance or obtain a waiver.    The Student Health Service will not know which students are less than part time.   The student enrolling at OHSU will be the first to know, the registrar and the billing office will know second, the school into which classes the student is enrolling will be third, and the Student Health Service will not know unless there is a problem.   One such problem might arise if a student increases his or her course load, going from “less than part time” to part-time or full-time, and is now required and billed for the insurance.   That student would need to know all the above information regarding the insurance and the waiver in advance of making this change. The Student Health Service will not be able to retroactively approve a waiver. If you contemplate making a change in your student status, please consider the possible effect it might have on your insurance eligibility.

Another potential problem would be a student who is full-time or part-time, and carries the student group insurance or has an approved waiver. If that student were to reduce his or her course load to the “less than part-time” level, the effect would be to “lose” insurance coverage on the student group insurance plan. If the student subsequently sees a provider, erroneously thinking they are covered, the insurance is billed and pays for the service, eventually the student will have to retroactively reimburse the insurance company.   Please be very careful when your student status changes to think about what effect this will have on your insurance situation.
It is up to the student to inform the Student Health Service in advance if there is a change in enrollment status that would change his or her insurance status.

3. Personal Health History Form. For Portland campus students at any level of enrollment (credit hours).    If your OHSU program is on the Portland Campus, a health fee will be charged to your account each term in which you are enrolled, which qualifies you to use the services of this Student Health Service. (The Fee Book, published by the registrar, determines which students in which programs are charged which fees.) We ask that you fill out the Personal Health History Form which you will find on this website. Do not give this to your OHSU program (it contains confidential personal health information) but send it directly to the Student Health Service.   It will become part of your confidential personal health record at the Student Health Service. If you have a history of chronic health concerns, for which you have been under ongoing medical care, we would suggest that you also request that your physician or other health care provider send a confidential summary directly to the Student Health Service, for purposes of continuity of care.

4. OHSU patient registration form. For Portland campus students.   If your OHSU program is on the Portland Campus and you are eligible for services in the Student Health Service we request that you download and fill in the OHSU Patient Registration Form which will provide the OHSU Hospital and Clinics system pertinent information that will smooth the way should you need lab or imaging services, or be referred to a specialist outside the Student Health Service. This form can be downloaded at OHSU Patient Registration Form. There are instructions with the form.

5. A Word about your Family.    Students who are married, or who are in a domestic partnership, may want to arrange for their spouse or partner to be eligible for services in the Student Health Service. These costs can be charged to your student account and this must be done within a month of starting classes when you first begin your program at OHSU.   For the health service only, there is an annual open enrollment the first thirty days of fall term.   This is different for the student health insurance in which there is only one thirty day open enrollment for family members, at the very beginning of your OHSU program.   If you do decide to enroll your spouse or partner and dependent children in the student group health insurance, those insurance premiums can also be charged to your student account.   Please review this website for information regarding eligibility, and deadlines. These decisions must be made and applications approved within 31 days of starting class at the beginning of your program. There is no later open enrollment time for the insurance except for certain qualified events.   While the student group health insurance program is available for dependent children, the services at the Student Health Service are provided to spouse or domestic partner, but are not available for dependent children. You may enroll your dependents by coming to the Student Health Service where our staff will help you with the proper forms.

That’s it. The above is only a summary and more detailed information is at various locations on this website. After reviewing them, if you still have any questions or concerns and your school administrators can’t answer them, contact us at askshs@ohsu.edu.
Best wishes for a great start, and health and success at OHSU!

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This page last updated 02262008

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