“Sorry, I don’t know if the fee of these crutches is covered. You’ll have to ask your insurance company.”

I was met with this dead end during my first visit to urgent care for a toe injury. In light of this recent accident, I began thinking about the broader barriers that impede our access to healthcare as subscribers to Wellesley’s student insurance plan. One of the biggest barriers is that the responsibility for navigating this complex system falls entirely on students, who often lack experience and knowledge of the medical system, leaving us in a state of precarity. 

Thus, the College must take the responsibility for making this process more transparent and accessible, helping students, especially those paying the hefty $4,015 annual fee, understand their rights within the insurance and healthcare system. 

After injuring my foot, I called the Health Service number on the back of my OneCard, only to receive no answer. It was then that I realized the health center is closed on weekends with no emergency helpline. Disoriented and unsure how to even secure an ice pack on campus, I called my friend from Boston for advice. It is often only during an accident that we see the systemic flaws: a lack of immediate information and a failure to provide accessible channels for guidance during an emergency. My friend suggested urgent care, specifically Mass General Brigham in Natick for its proximity. 

As an international student, I had no idea what “Urgent Care” entailed. My only point of reference was the Emergency Room, which I knew to avoid due to its notorious costs and uncertain insurance coverage. This reveals another obstacle for people who are unfamiliar with the U.S. medical system: distinguishing the different functions of various medical institutions. This shortcoming could be mitigated by the school in the future by offering training during the international student orientation to address this obstacle beforehand. 

The obstacles continued when I proceeded to pay. Medical professionals who provide the care often have little to no insight into the specific billing details of the insurance plans they accept, leaving the cost of medical durable equipment, like crutches, a mystery. This creates a precarious lag, with the actual bill arriving weeks after the point of care. This delay forces patients to make a high-stakes “gamble” the moment they are offered treatment: do I accept this aid now and hope it’s covered, or risk my health to avoid a high potential cost?

This “price game” began even before I reached the clinic. I chose to take an Uber, which is already not an easy expense for every student, specifically to avoid the possibly much more exorbitant cost of an ambulance. This hesitation is rooted in a broader collective narrative regarding American emergency services. On Chinese social media, the “jaw dropping ambulance bill” is a recurring topic among Chinese students and workers in the U.S., sometimes pairing with the classic jokes about pleading with bystanders not to call 911 before one loses consciousness. While these memes may not perfectly reflect the reality of every international student, the general hesitation to utilize emergency resources due to price uncertainty is a documented phenomenon that deserves serious institutional attention and factual clarification.

Seeking clarity, I attempted to investigate how our insurance actually works. The Wellesley “Student Health Insurance” webpage highlights general points but lacks specific pricing or procedural steps. A hyperlink to the “University Health Plans” site leads to a dense column of sections and a “Plan Highlight” summary. It notes that students don’t need referrals or primary care physicians and mentions a “Hospital Choice Cost Sharing” feature.

However, there is a distinct lack of accessible language. For an international student raised in a different medical system, the significance of “referrals” or “cost-sharing levels” is not intuitive. Expecting a patient in the middle of an emergency to cross-reference a PDF of 70+ Massachusetts hospitals to find a “low-cost”, nearby location is unrealistic. Also, hospitals are not the same as urgent care, yet the latter is not listed. 

The 14-page “25-26 Summary of Benefits and Coverage” document under the “Benefit Information” tab is the right place for students to find more detailed and comprehensive coverage lists. However, it is a term maze of “coinsurance”, “pre-authorization” and “cost share”. I only managed to navigate it with the help of a pre-med friend who had the patience to dig through the material I still find unclear. In an ironic turn of events, I found out that students on Wellesley’s insurance can access emergency medical transportation (an ambulance) for free. 

Had I not needed urgent care, I might have never realized how opaque the system is and what benefits we have under our student insurance. But shouldn’t we understand our coverage before the crisis hits? For students without a local support network, the fear of unknown costs can lead to a dangerous outcome: choosing to forgo medical care entirely. Yet, this fear could at least be clarified with concise information, and might even be erased, just like how the ambulance fee is actually fully covered in our plan. Listing information on a website is not the same as making that information accessible. As the provider of our insurance, the College should help clarify our benefits and provide practical highlights, ensuring no student feels abandoned in an emergency.

Contact the editors responsible for this article: Caitlin Donovan, Avery Finley