New Health Insurance at AUBG




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  • 2013-02-12 15:03:38
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International students at AUBG are paying less money for health insurance compared to last year due to the fact that since Oct. 20, 2012, AUBG is working with a new insurance company. According to Alexander Alexandrov, Vice President for Finance and Administration at AUBG, the administration has found alternatives that are less expensive. One of the main reasons according to him is the fact that the amount of the claims for insurance coverage was about ¼ of what the University actually has paid to the company. Lydia Krise, Dean of Students, explained that every year parameters for the students' needs are set and sent to the insurance companies in the region. “There is a selection committee that chooses the best offer,” Krise said, “[A]nd it will be reviewed next year.” This is a standard process executed by AUBG's administration. Doctor Ventsislav Daskalov, Health Center Director, said that a committee collected offers from different health insurance companies. “We [Health Center] reviewed them and picked the best one in our view." “The administration did not agree with me this year […], they negotiated with some of the companies and they changed the contract,” Dr. Daskalov said.  He was later informed about the contract and asked for his opinion. “I told them it is acceptable, not perfect.” The main difference between the new and the old contract will be the lower price. “The maximum amount of money that they will reimburse is more or less the same," Daskalov said, “[I]t will be lower than it was in the past but we actually almost never reach to the top.” On the other side, students will have to pay additional $10 if they visit another doctor or hospital. “So if you go for a lab test which cost 20 lv, you get back only 5.” And the problems start here. Dr. Daskalov confirmed that there were several cases in which the new company refused to reimburse students. “We had a few refusals to women going to visit gynecologist,” he said.  The problem occurred because the gynecologist stated in the papers that there is nothing wrong and the company will not pay. “There is no way to convince them that people are not visiting doctors just because they love going to hospitals,” Daskalov said and added that according to the contract, reimbursement will be available only if the illness or the disease involve pain.
Dr.Daskalov
The new company is “more bureaucratic” and has “very strict policies” which will be problematic for AUBG students, who “were used to be more flexible, to go wherever they want, do whatever they want,” Daskalov said. “They are not really willing to respond to our need and change a little bit their approach to what students actually need.” His explanation was that in the past, for international students, the University has been using life insurance with a bonus coverage for medical expenses because “there is no such product (medical insurance for international students) on the Bulgarian market.” In the past few years the companies that have been working with AUBG came to understand that the goal of the university is not to get money when a student is ill. “I hope it will never happen,” Daskalov said, “our goal is to cover their expenses but they [the new company] are applying the rules for life insurance very wholly.”
There will be changes in the process because insurance companies work with a panel of doctors whose judgements will define whether someone should be reimbursed or not. “There was kind of strict requirements that they want with every case, the student to present a copy of his ID,” Daskalov said. Another readjustment will be the filling of special forms, different from those the doctors use in their everyday practice. The process will thus be “little bit slower” and will give “the feeling things are not so smooth.”