Posted on Monday, March 21st, 2011 at 3:06 pm

Good news for international students in Massachusetts on the health care front: Massachusetts requires full-time students to have health insurance as a way to guarantee a level of minimum health benefits to a demographic which otherwise is often unable to afford medical treatment through the American system.

International students in Massachusetts may meet the state’s health insurance requirement by automatically being enrolled in their institution’s QSHIP (Qualifying Student Health Insurance Plan) plan, with the cost being added to tuition. Educational institutions in Massachusetts reserve the right to require students to enroll in their QSHIP plan, so in the event a student prefers to satisfy this requirement in one of the aforementioned manners other than through the attending institution’s QSHIP plan, they may want to check to make sure both that the institution does not have mandatory enrollment in its QSHIP plan, and the minimum benefits requirements will be met by the prospective independent plan.

The minimum benefits a student health insurance plan must meet in Massachusetts are:

• The plan provides reasonably comprehensive coverage of health services, including preventive and primary care, emergency services, hospitalization benefits, ambulatory patient services and mental health services
• The plan provides all benefits and services required by the Division of Insurance statutes and regulations
• If the plan limits benefits per illness or accident, the minimum aggregate indemnity to be paid for all benefits for each physical or mental illness or accident may not be less than $50,000 per year; the total annual deductibles may not exceed $250 per year.

You can learn more about Massachusetts state requirement on the governmental student health insurance website.

Posted by Jennifer Frankel

Jennifer is the International Director at International Student Insurance. Jennifer is a graduate of the University of Florida where she holds a Masters in International Business and a Bachelors of Science in Business Administration. She has lived and worked abroad in Mexico, Chile, Costa Rica and England, and traveled extensively in South America, Europe and Asia.