China adoption travel: Apply for health insurance before traveling to China

China adoption travel is filled with excitement and wonder. However, one detail must not be forgotten before boarding the plane to meet your new child—health insurance.

When we received our referral, we immediately notified our insurance company. For us, adding our daughter was as simple as filling out a form and sending it into our human resources department before our China adoption travel.

In our case, our health insurance company said they could not actually insure our daughter until they received her adoption papers.

Once we adopted our daughter in China, we faxed her adoption decree (the English version) to our human resources department from our hotel in China. This department, in turn, made sure our daughter was added to all their policies including health, vision, and dental insurance.

This was imperative because once we returned to the US from our China adoption travel, we took our daughter to our pediatrician within 48 hours for a medical examination. We wanted to make sure any and all necessary procedures were covered before we had her examined. It was much easier to pay our co-pay than to send in more paperwork for reimbursement had she not been covered.

Contact your human resources department for advice. If necessary, contact each individual insurance company.

The important thing to remember is to get this process started and, if possible, completed before your China adoption travel.

One other thing to keep in mind is that some insurance companies get prickly about adding adopted children to an insurance plan at all. Sometimes an insurance company will declare the child has a preexisting condition that it will not insure.

This can happen when a child needs to wear corrective devices such as helmets to reshape the head. Or, it can happen when a child may need special procedures to correct other medical conditions.

If your health insurance is a group plan offered by your employer and insures biological children, then “preexisting condition” is a misnomer. Denying coverage is illegal. These insurance companies are required by federal law to insure adopted children.

There are some plans such as governmental and church-sponsored plans that are offered to their employees at the state level. They are not subject to the same federal laws as are the employer-sponsored group plans discussed above. In addition, individual plans are regulated by the state.

Check with your state government if you are insured by a plan that is regulated at the state level to determine if your child is eligible for coverage. Fortunately, most states protect your and your adopted child’s rights.

If your insurance company is giving you grief, and you know they are required to insure your child, they may need to be reminded of what the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 states.

“A preexisting condition exclusion cannot be applied to a newborn, adopted child under age 18, or a child under age 18 placed for adoption as long as the child became covered under health coverage within 30 days of the birth, adoption or placement for adoption and provided that the child does not incur a subsequent 63-day break in coverage.”

Source: Department of Labor

Sending them a copy of the law along with a letter demanding attention to this matter usually gets the insurance companies moving in the right direction. In addition, you can contact your state’s insurance commissioner and your congress person if necessary.

For us, being proactive and well informed before our adoption China adoption travel helped us avoid delays in our children’s health insurance coverage. However, we knew if push came to shove, we would shove if we had to in order to protect our children and their rights.

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