Health Care and Health Insurance

The US Health Care System

The American system of health care is a private system; the government does not run it. Each person is responsible for paying his or her own medical bills. Medical costs in the US are extremely high. For example, it would cost $500 to spend one night in the hospital, not including any fees paid to the doctor or to the laboratories for testing. The cost of a simple broken arm could be anywhere from $500 to $5,000. Since medical bills would be a great financial hardship for students, the University of St. Thomas requires all international students to buy health insurance.

University of St. Thomas Health Service

The University of St. Thomas has its own Health Service. Their staff and services will meet most of your routine health care needs. The Health Service is open from 8:00 am-4:30 pm, Monday-Friday, when school is in session, and at reduced hours during summer.

The clinic is staffed by nurse practitioners, physicians and nurses. These services are open to all registered UST students. UST Student Health Services will bill your insurance company for the cost of these services. Any UST Student Health Services costs not covered by your health insurance will be added to your UST student account. For more information on our health service please visit the Health Services Website.

Health Insurance Requirements

Health insurance is required of all F-1 and J-1 international students. When you register for classes you will automatically be enrolled in our UST Sponsored Student Health Insurance Plan.

Immunizations

Minnesota Law requires that all students who are born after December 31, 1956 and enrolled in a public or private post-secondary school in Minnesota must be immunized against diphtheria, tetanus, measles, mumps, & rubella, and provide a month and year of vaccinations that were given on or after their first birthday. Any vaccination before the age of one is not acceptable.

If you have had measles, mumps, or rubella, the law requires that you either have a blood titre (blood test) done to prove immunity (please send a copy of the laboratory work) or a physician’s signed document attesting to the disease, and also the month and year in which you had the disease.

The law also requires that you have a diphtheria-tetanus vaccination within the last ten years. Please provide the month and year of that vaccination also. There is no titre (blood test) that is acceptable as proof of immunity for diphtheria-tetanus.

The following Immunization information is to be entered by the student under the Student Service tab in Murphy Online at http://banner.stthomas.edu:

• The 2 dates of your measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccination.
• The date of the tetanus-diphtheria (TD) vaccine (within the past ten years).

No changes can be made once this information is entered. You may contact Student Health Service at 651-962-6750 with updates, changes or questions. Registration holds will be placed on all undergraduate students and all international students that do not enter this information by the 45th day of classes.

If you have a medical condition that precludes the administration of the necessary vaccinations, please have a physician sign a medical waiver explaining the condition and why the immunizations should not be done.

If you have a philosophical objection to the immunizations, please write the objection and have your signature notarized by a notary public. Please be aware that if an outbreak of measles, mumps or rubella does occur, persons requesting medical waiver or philosophical objection will not be allowed to attend classes until the outbreak is over.