By Jess Wind (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: October 30, 2013
Next time you feel like you’re coming down with something, skip WebMD. It is now possible to access medical help through your student health care plan.
Following an October 21 press conference, Studentcare, the service provider for the Student Union Society (SUS) health and dental plan, announced a partnership with Medeo, a Vancouver-based company that set out to provide doctors with modern technology to erase distance between patient and doctor.
Students already signed up for health and dental coverage through SUS are eligible for this service. Doctors can provide prescription renewals and various consultations as well as referrals to specialists.
And it’s free.
SUS health and dental representative Megan Zacharias explained the benefit of the new program.
“Students are able to access doctors outside of the UFV area; for example, there are specialists located in Vancouver or Victoria,” she said. “This will decrease wait times for specialists as well as provide access for students who do not have their own transportation.”
Zacharias went on to note that while this doesn’t affect health and dental costs in any way, the online availability cuts down transportation costs for students.
Medeo CEO Ryan Wilson acknowledged that getting medical help for students poses unique challenges.
“Many students move to new cities around the province, away from easy access to their family physicians,” he said in a press release. “They are under a lot of new stresses meaning both physical and mental health issues can go unchecked.”
