RESOURCES: Healthcare

So I’m a graduate student. What is my situation in terms of medical benefits?
We basically have THREE different health and dental accounts all through Greenshield:

1. The GSU coverage
2. The CUPE Top-up coverage (new; meant to cover the “copay” not covered by the GSU coverage), and
3. The CUPE HealthCare Spending Account (HCSA; meant to cover anything as a pool of money; now $300).

To make your life easier, make accounts online at Greenshield.ca.

You need to make TWO SEPARATE ACCOUNTS: a GSU account and a CUPE account.

The GSU account ID is UTG[student#]-00, and you put all of your given names that are included on your University documents in the “First name” box.

The CUPE account ID is UOT[emp|oyee#]-OO, and you put all of your given names that are associated with GSU “First name” box.

I would highly recommend immediately using your HCSA to cover the insurance premium payed into your tuition for the GSU plan. To do this:

1. in your CUPE online account, go to the “Healthcare Spending account” in the “My Spending Accounts” tab on the left. This option is not available in the GSU account, because there is no HCSA for that account.
2. Click the “here” link in the text in the middle of the page.
3. Choose Health and Dental Plan Premiums as the type of claim and click next (I’m pretty sure, I just did this so we’ll see if it worked when I get my cheque).
4. Now, IMPORTANTLY, for the date of the expense put at least September lst of the tuition year. I put the actual date listed on the U of T account invoice (August) and was immediately denied.

The total amount (for most people I think) was 442.16. You will only get a max of 300 back, but its better than nothing. I was told on the phone by someone from Greenshield that you just submit this without any documentation, and you only need to provide it if they ask for it.

Thanks to Caleb Browne for the legwork!