MHECare: New Student Health Collaborative for the West
The WICHE Commission has voted to partner with the Midwestern Higher Education Compact (MHEC) to expand the benefits of MHECare, a student health program offering competitively priced medical benefits, to public and private institutions in the 15-state WICHE region. Beginning in fall 2012, Western institutions may offer their students MHECare coverage.
MHEC, with financial support from Lumina Foundation, worked with its regional Student Benefits Advisory Committee for nearly four years to create MHECare, designed to provide colleges and universities with health insurance for their students, along with significant cost savings (achievable by working collaboratively across institutions). A competitive bid process led MHEC to choose Mercer Health & Benefits, an independent consulting firm, as the program administrator. Working with Mercer and its advisory committee, MHEC designed the plan and selected UnitedHealthcare StudentResources (UHCSR), a national healthcare carrier, to underwrite the program (again, through a competitive bid process). UHCSR, a division of the national healthcare carrier UnitedHealthcare, specializes in competitively priced student health insurance plans, has a large national network of providers, and offers web-based enrollment and support tools.
MHECare offers standard high or low PPO options to institutions that will have fewer than 300 students enrolled in the plan, as well as to institutions that don’t currently offer a plan. Rates for these plans will not be based on an institution’s claims experience but will depend on whether the plan is voluntary or mandatory with waiver. Institutions with more than 300 students enrolled have additional options, including a plan with features tailored to their student population. The cost for the plan will be underwritten based on the institution’s claims experience and utilization. As more campuses offer MHECare, rates will become more stable as risk is spread and the impact of large claims is reduced.
MHECare can also provide institutions with over 300 students enrolled with a quote for their current plan design with any changes that are required by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The healthcare reform law sets dramatically higher coverage limits for student health policies. This has dramatically driven up the cost of student health insurance policies at many campuses.
The New England Board of Higher Education has voted to join MHECare, so that institutions in 31 states are now eligible to participate. Participating institutions must agree that MHECare will be the only plan offered to all of their eligible populations. Since MHEC has already completed its due diligence in selecting UHCSR as the carrier, it may not be necessary for institutions to conduct a formal request for proposal, saving both time and resources. Currently, the plan offers medical benefits only (not vision or dental insurance).
Institutions interested in MHECare may obtain a request-for-quote form from Jennifer Dahlquist, MHEC's assistant vice president for cost savings and chief financial officer (jenniferd@mhec.org, 612.626.1602). If quotes are requested for more than the standard high and low PPO plans, MHECare will require additional information (which may include a copy of an institution’s current plan design, requested benefits, and claims experience). Once all the information is received, UHCSR will send the quote in approximately 10 working days.
WICHE currently partners with MHEC on two other cost-saving initiatives: the MHEC Master Property Program, which provides property insurance to colleges and universities; and the MHECTech program, which enables colleges and universities in the Midwest and West to buy equipment and other products off competitively bid purchasing agreements to contain or reduce their costs. Its experience with both initiatives—and that of participating Western institutions—has been highly positive. For more details on MHECare’s key provisions and students’ out-of-pocket costs, visit the MHECare page [www.mhec.org/mhecare]. Additionally, questions may be addressed to Jennifer Dahlquist or Jere Mock, WICHE’s vice president of programs and services (jmock@wiche.edu, 303.541.0222).
New WRGP Programs
The Western Regional Graduate Program (WRGP), which allows master’s, graduate certificate, and doctoral students who are residents of the 15 WICHE states to enroll in high-quality, out-of-state programs at participating institutions on a resident tuition basis, is offering 29 new programs, which will begin enrolling students in fall 2012. The programs include San Francisco State University’s professional science master’s in biotechnology and stem cell science; University of Colorado Denver’s Anschutz Medical Campus’s doctorate in computational bioscience; California State University Monterey Bay’s master’s in coastal and watershed science and policy; New Mexico State University’s master’s in physics with a space physics concentration; University of Hawai’i Manoa’s master’s in Pacific Islands studies; Montana State University Billings’s master’s of health administration; and others. WRGP programs now number 275 at 51 participating institutions, including 80 healthcare-related programs in areas such as graduate nursing, public health, mental health and psychology, audiology and speech pathology, biomedical informatics, occupational therapy, and dental hygiene. A growing number of programs are offered fully or partially online. In fall 2011 WRGP enrolled more than 850 students, who saved an estimated $11.5 million in tuition, and enrollments continue to increase. WICHE staff will disseminate the next call for nominations for new WRGP programs in fall 2012.
State Authorization Network
WCET’s State Authorization Network, founded to help institutions work together to navigate authorization regulations, which vary from state to state, is now in its second year. Network members receive training on state and federal regulations, share their experiences in seeking authorization, and develop strategies for effectively navigating authorization. The number of public systems, interstate consortia, and individual institutions participating in the network grew from 29 to 35; the network serves more than 600 public and private institutions throughout the country.
WICHE and WCET staff are working with a regional steering committee of higher education leaders from all sectors, staff of regulatory agencies, accreditors, and legislative and executive branch representatives to develop the WICHE State Authorization Reciprocity Agreement, to establish reciprocity between WICHE member states that accept each others’ authorization of institutions to offer education services beyond state boundaries. The agreement is intended to facilitate expanded access to high-quality distance educational opportunities for students by improving state policy and operational mechanisms. WICHE has benefitted greatly in the development of this agreement from the work of the Presidents Forum and Council of State Governments. With support from Lumina Foundation, they have been engaged in an effort to create a model nationwide interstate reciprocity program. Building on that effort, WICHE’s agreement proposes a framework that would allow the four regional interstate compacts (and states and territories that do not currently belong to one of the four interstate compacts) to join together in a collaborative effort to ensure nationwide coverage of reciprocal agreements. Review and approval of the draft agreement will be on the agenda of the WICHE Commission’s November meeting; the leaders of the other regional compacts are anticipated to take similar action during this timeframe.
Mixed Media
WICHE’s Policy unit has just published “Going the Distance in Adult College Completion: Lessons from the Non-traditional No More Project,” which includes case studies and lessons learned from the six states that participated in Non-traditional No More (NTNM): Arkansas, Colorado, Nevada, New Jersey, North Dakota, and South Dakota. Supported by Lumina Foundation, NTNM focused on identifying and implementing promising state and institutional policies and practices that can better serve “ready adults”: those who left higher education with significant college credits but without finishing their degrees.
In May WCET’s Frontiers was named a “must read” educational technology blog in Ed Tech magazine’s article, “The Dean's List: 50 Must-Read Higher Education Technology Blogs”. Frontiers features WCET staff and guest bloggers writing on a range of issues, such as mobile apps for learning, trends in the learning management systems, test proctoring, and developments related to state authorization of distance education.
Meetings Debriefing
Programs and Services staff met with WICHE’s Veterinary Medicine Advisory Council on June 20-22 in Santa Fe. The council, which includes state, legislative, and institutional representatives, meets annually to review policies regarding Professional Student Exchange Program (PSEP) support in veterinary medicine, the largest PSEP field. In 2011-12 eight states provided almost $6 million in support for 202 students studying veterinary medicine. Staff and the council discussed veterinary workforce needs in the West; the evolution of the doctorate of veterinary medicine (D.V.M.) curriculum as institutions move towards interprofessional education and problem-based learning; the need for D.V.M.s in public and global health and D.V.M./M.P.H. and D.V.M./Ph.D. programs; and the increase in student debt loads and low starting salaries in some regions. Staff from WICHE’s Mental Health Program presented a session on strategies to help students and D.V.M. colleagues handle the stresses unique to the D.V.M. profession; according to recent studies, the D.V.M. suicide rate is one of the highest among healthcare professionals.
On May 9-10 WCET convened 100 higher education administrators, e-learning experts, and representatives from four textbook-publishing companies in Salt Lake City to identify critical issues that institutions ought to consider to be successful with a digital content initiative. The adoption of digital-learning content to replace or supplement traditional print textbooks presents both an opportunity and a challenge. Many institutions have developed partnerships with commercial providers of e-textbooks, oftentimes with the goal of controlling rising textbook costs for students. Others are building entire courses or learning components such as simulations and are making them freely available as open educational resources. The meeting’s speakers included Kaye Howe, executive director of the National Science Digital Library and a former WICHE commissioner, who detailed why this topic is so critical for engaging today’s youth in learning; and a representative from the U.S. Department of Education, who spoke about several important federal initiatives promoting open educational resources.
In other news WICHE's Policy Analysis and Research unit hosted the sixth multistate data exchange working meeting on May 23-24 in Eugene. In addition, Policy staff presented on the data exchange project, and how it’s an excellent testbed for the Common Education Data Standards project, at the spring meeting of the Education Information Management Advisory Consortium, which works with the Council of Chief State School Officers. Staff also presented at the IPEDS Workshop and State Data Conference in Bethesda in early May and at the Association for Institutional Research’s Annual Forum in New Orleans. In June Policy staff joined a meeting of Colorado and Denver agencies serving low-income residents, focusing on ideas for increasing their success in education and training. Policy staff also served on the faculty at the recent Mayors Institute on Children and Families [http://www.nlc.org/find-city-solutions/iyef/mayors-institute-on-children-and-families], hosted by the National League of Cities, providing guidance on increasing attainment by adults with prior college credit and increasing college access and success for low-income students. Finally, Policy staff spoke to higher education leaders from the Four Corners’ states (Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah) about the implementation of the Common Core State Standards at a meeting hosted by the College Board in Scottsdale.
Newscap June 2012
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3035 Center Green Drive, Suite 200
Boulder, CO 80301-2204
Telephone 303.541.0200 | Network Fax: 303.541.0291
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