There are 2 topics here about the health stuffs at USC.

1. The USC Health Insurance and USC Health Center Fee
2. The USC Immunization Requirement

The mandatory health center fee is for the USC clinic. You can go to use their service if you need. It is not for emergency nor serious health problem. In those case, they will refer you to the USC hospital network, using the optional USC health insurance plan.

You MUST have some kinds of health insurance. You do not know what will happen such as Oh+'s Pneumothorax or my torn ACL. Without the health insurance, the health service fee in the US is very expensive. It does NOT have to be through USC. Nevertheless, it did save someone's life. Oh+/Oakley said "I've found that having USC insurance is probably the best thing ever for me...especially when my lung collapsed 2 years ago. A lot less hassles."

The USC health insurance is optional but you have to show your third-party sufficient insurance to USC health center to waive this optional fee.

Every student including Americans has to pay for the Health Center fee.
Every new student is going to have an USC financial account automatically.

For an international student, both Health Center fee and Health Insurance fee will be charged to her account automatically. However, they are going to return only the Health Insurance fee back in a couple of weeks if the proof of SUFFICIENT health insurance is presented to the Health center.

Since every student pays for the health center fee, he/she can go to use their services but he/she has to buy medicine with her money. The health center is similar to a big polyclinics in Thailand. They can draw blood to help diagnosis, perform X-ray exam, take history, perform physical exam and give a prescription to buy medicine. If the health center cannot handle your problem, they will refer you to a specialist or hospital for further diagnosis and treatment. In this case as well as real emergency and hospitalization, you need the health
insurance to pay for you. (A few days in a hospital may cost $20,000 easily.)

Bad news! Not like in Thailand, most of your visits to the USC Health Center for their services, you have to see a physician assistant. If he/she cannot handle your problem, she/he will give you an appointment with a doctor at the Center or give you a referral letter to see a doctor/specialist outside the Center (of course, with your insurance money either USC or third-party own). Actually, if you have a very good third-party insurance plan (as Oh+'s after graduation), you can go to see a doctor outside the Center directly. However, which doctor or hospital is depended on your insurance plan/company.


-- modified from P' Wit and P' Oh+ Oakley webboard messages by A

[goto top]

In general, one could just go to any hospital nearby. Bring with him/her the USC form, the one you have to use the 2B pencil to fill it out, the birth certificate and the health care record. Take the required vaccines and have the doctor signed the paper. In some case, he/she will have to take the X-Ray of his/her lung.

"I remember taking a measles vaccine and an X-ray for my chest at Phaya Thai Hospital and had the doctor there signed an sort-of immunization document that came with the admission package (remember that package from USC notifying that you are admitted, that 'Congratulation!' stuff?) The signed paper work for me here (ie, I didn't have to take a measles vaccination here at USC) but I did have to skin-test for Tuberculosis (TB) anyway once I arrived, despite having the X-ray with me." said P' Peach.

American doctors think that the TB skin test is important. If it is positive, a further investigation has to be done such as chest X-ray and sputum smear exam.

But Thai doctors do not think that the TB skin test is important in a Thai healthy person. Because most of Thais are positive for the test without active TB. So the chest X-ray is more important than the TB skin test for Thai doctors as well as American doctors with
enough knowledge of international epidemiology.

Anyway, what is written should be done, so that you will not waste your time again at the health center.

You can avoid most of viral vaccination if you have your documented vaccination history or you have positive blood test for those viruses. (Your blood can be drawn at once but sent for many tests. Ask your doctor if you want to avoid some viral vaccinations.)

If you TB skin test is negative, the chest X-ray is not required. But a letter from your hospital is required verifying that the test is negative.

If it is positive, you might be one of these cases:

1. If you are healthy, you might come from a very good hygiene family.
   
2. If you are not healthy, further investigations are recommended, e.g. for AIDS, on an immunosuppressant, (any condition compromising immune system).
   

In the US, if the skin test is positive, the doctor will order chest X-ray and/or smeared sputum AFB stain (again, the stain is hardly to be positive unless there is active TB in the lungs). You see, Thai doctors go for the second step right away. Because most of Thais are positive for the skin test but have no active TB in their bodies. Thais are exposed to TB often enough to activate their immune systems to be positive for the skin test (but not infected).

After the TB is nearly eradicated from Thailand for a while, the negative skin test measurement will be useful to be the first step of TB detection. Unfortunately, that hope might not be possible soon because of the AIDS' prevalence. An AIDS patient can easily get TB infection and spread until after a couple of weeks of TB treatment. In the USA, if they cannot control AIDS with TB, a lot of Americans will have the positive skin test but no active TB as Thais do in the near future.


-- modified from P' Wit and P' Peach webboard messages by A

[goto top]