University Health Services (UHS) Fee Increase Notice
Effective January 1, 2024, the University Health Services (UHS) office visit fees for Primary Care and Urgent Care appointments have increased.
Students with SHIP will not see an increase in what they pay out-of-pocket for a Primary Care or Urgent Care visit. Copay fees will remain $15 for a Primary Care office visit and $35 for an Urgent Care office visit.
Students who do not have SHIP who access UHS services will have an increase in fees for out-of-pocket costs:
- A Primary Care office visit fee has changed from $15 to $60 - $140 (depending on the type/reason of visit)
- An Urgent Care Office visit fee has changed from $35 to $100 - $225 (depending on the type/reason of visit)
- Students not on SHIP would pay out-of-pocket and can get a receipt from our billing/cashier department to file for reimbursement with their insurance carrier.
Background on Fee Increase
- With medical cost inflation and rising staffing costs, we have not been able to cover our costs for primary and urgent care for several years.
- Student enrollment numbers have grown, but student fees for health services have not increased at the same rate.
- Our Primary Care and Urgent Care services have not had a significant fee increase in over a decade.
- This office visit fee increase is necessary to put our fees in alignment with market rates, medical costs inflation, and industry billing standards.
- Our new fees are in line with other UC Student Health Centers.
- To bring our fees and billing practices up to industry standards we are increasing our office visit fees and implementing a tiered fee schedule based on the level of complexity of the office visit.
Health Opportunity Fund (HOF)
We are working on solutions to help offset the fee increase for non-SHIP students who use these services including adding more funding to our Health Opportunity Fund (HOF) to offset out-of-pocket costs. We sent a variety of communications to students notifying them of this increase.
Questions
For questions, please reach out to telltang@berkeley.edu.