Act now to preserve health benefits for student dependents
May and June are traditionally the months in which most full-time students complete their studies. If you have a child who is age 19 or older and enrolled in the NYS Health Insurance Program (NYSHIP), check now to determine if he or she remains eligible for coverage.
Your unmarried dependent children ages 19 through 24 are eligible if they are full-time students at an accredited educational institution and are otherwise not eligible for employer group coverage. They continue to be eligible until the earlier of the following dates:
• The end of the third month following the month in which they complete course requirements for graduation; or
• They reach age 25.
Students who want to continue health insurance coverage during the summer must have been enrolled in the previous spring semester and must be enrolled as full-time students for the fall semester.
If a dependent child who was a full-time student in the spring semester does not enroll as a full-time student for the fall semester, coverage under the parent’s policy will end on the last day of the month in which the student was a full-time student attending classes.
Don’t lose coverage
If you want your child to continue to be covered without interruption, you must act quickly in one of two ways:
• Continue coverage in NYSHIP under COBRA, or
• Convert to direct-pay contracts.
60-day deadline for COBRA
Under provisions of COBRA (the federal Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act), the employee or a family member is responsible for informing the Employee Benefits Division (EBD) of the state Department of Civil Service of a child’s losing NYSHIP eligibility within 60 days from the date coverage ends.
To request a COBRA election form, write to:
NYS Dept. of Civil Service
Employee Benefits Division
Attn: COBRA Unit
State Office Building Campus
Albany, NY 12239
Include your Social Security number, the dependent’s name, the reason for the request, the date coverage ended, and a telephone number where you can be reached during the workday.
The health care benefits your child may continue under COBRA are the same benefits you receive as an active employee enrolled in NYSHIP. COBRA requires that your child have the opportunity to continue coverage for up to 36 months. The cost of COBRA coverage is the full premium (both the employer and employee share) plus a 2 percent administrative fee.
If your child is seeking admission to a school over the summer, but has not yet been accepted, coverage should be continued through COBRA. Once your child’s enrolled for the fall semester, his or her dependent-student status will be reinstated back to the date he or she lost eligibility and the COBRA premium paid during the interim will be refunded.
Direct pay’s the other way
The other way to preserve health coverage for your children losing eligibility is to convert to direct-pay contracts after their NYSHIP coverage ends. Notification procedures and deadlines for applying for conversion coverage vary among the NYSHIP health care plans.
The benefit package for direct-pay conversion contracts may differ from what your child had under NYSHIP. To obtain premium information, contact the carrier or HMO directly.
Additional information concerning COBRA and direct-pay conversion contracts can be found in the January 1, 1996 NYSHIP General Information Book and the documents communicating changes made since then. You may also ask your agency health benefits administrator for help.
GO TO HEALTH BENEFITS WEBSITENew office’s
goal improving career mobility
If you’re a NYS
employee who would like to move up in state service, help
has arrived.
PEF and other state-employee unions have joined with the
state to fund the new Career Mobility Office (CMO) at the
state Department of Civil Service.
The CMO replaces the Employee Services Office which had
evolved over a number of years out of a program that
began in 1987 at the state Offices of Mental Health and
of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities to
help staff whose jobs were being cut to find other
positions in state service.
The new CMO has the following goals:
• Keep state employees continuously employed in
comparable titles in the face of organizational changes;
• Provide career tools and resources to state
employees that encourage employee development to meet the
state’s work force needs;
• Provide relevant, customized career counseling
services to state employees; and
• Identify and expand mobility options for the
current work force through outreach, research, analysis
and advocacy.
CMO services will be provided through a central office at
the Department of Civil Service in Albany and at a
satellite office in New York City.
— Sherry Halbrook