If a parent’s health insurance plan covers dependents, you usually can be added to their plan and stay on it until you turn 26.
How to Get Added to a Parent’s Insurance PlanJob-based plans: Your parent can add you to their insurance during the plan’s yearly Open Enrollment Period or during a Special Enrollment Period. Your parent should check with the plan or their employer’s benefits department for details.
Plans bought through the Health Insurance Marketplace: When a parent applies for a new plan in the Marketplace, they can include you on their application. They can add you to an existing Marketplace plan only during the yearly Open Enrollment Period or a Special Enrollment Period.
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Heading off to college can be a stressful and chaotic time on its own – but throw a chronic illness (or a few) into the mix and it becomes even trickier to manage all the demands of your day-to-day life. High stress levels or a lack of sleep can easily exacerbate your condition and lead to flare-ups, so it’s important to balance your schedule, plan ahead and make sure you have any accommodations you need to be successful.
To help you prepare for the upcoming semester, we asked our Mighty community to share their “hacks” for attending college with chronic illness. Regardless of whether you’re taking one course or a full schedule, attending classes on campus or doing them online, or even if you’re taking time off and aren’t able to attend college at all, that’s OK. Take your time, put your health and well-being first, and know you are a warrior.
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Sickle cell disease (SCD) affects millions of people throughout the world and is particularly common among those whose ancestors came from sub-Saharan Africa; Spanish-speaking regions in the Western Hemisphere (South America, the Caribbean, and Central America); Saudi Arabia; India; and Mediterranean countries such as Turkey, Greece, and Italy.
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OBJECTIVE We aimed to identify hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c)-associated genetic variants and examine their implications for glycemic status evaluated by HbA1c in U.S. Hispanics/Latinos with diverse genetic ancestries.
RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS We conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of HbA1c in 9,636 U.S. Hispanics/Latinos without diabetes from the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos, followed by a replication among 4,729 U.S. Hispanics/Latinos from three independent studies.
RESULTS Our GWAS and replication analyses showed 10 previously known and novel loci associated with HbA1c at genome-wide significance levels (P < 5.0 × 10−8). In particular, two African ancestry–specific variants, HBB-rs334 and G6PD-rs1050828, which are causal mutations for sickle cell disease and G6PD deficiency, respectively, had ∼10 times larger effect sizes on HbA1c levels (β = −0.31% [−3.4 mmol/mol]) and −0.35% [−3.8 mmol/mol] per minor allele, respectively) compared with other HbA1c-associated variants (0.03–0.04% [0.3–0.4 mmol/mol] per allele). A novel Amerindian ancestry–specific variant, HBM-rs145546625, was associated with HbA1c and hematologic traits but not with fasting glucose. The prevalence of hyperglycemia (prediabetes and diabetes) defined using fasting glucose or oral glucose tolerance test 2-h glucose was similar between carriers of HBB-rs334 or G6PD-rs1050828 HbA1c-lowering alleles and noncarriers, whereas the prevalence of hyperglycemia defined using HbA1c was significantly lower in carriers than in noncarriers (12.2% vs. 28.4%, P < 0.001). After recalibrating the HbA1c level taking HBB-rs334 and G6PD-rs1050828 into account, the prevalence of hyperglycemia in carriers was similar to noncarriers (31.3% vs. 28.4%, P = 0.28).
CONCLUSIONS This study in U.S. Hispanics/Latinos found several ancestry-specific alleles associated with HbA1c through erythrocyte-related rather than glycemic-related pathways. The potential influences of these nonglycemic-related variants need to be considered when the HbA1c test is performed.
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Despite benefits in reducing pain crises, transfusions, hospitalizations, and mortality in sickle cell disease (SCD),1-5 hydroxyurea (HU) is underutilized.1,6,7 A recent Cochrane meta-analysis found no significant increase in adverse events among HU-treated patients with SCD,8 yet fears of possible adverse effects have been identified as a key barrier to HU acceptance.9-11 In light of the poor uptake of HU among the SCD population, hematologists need to fully understand patient and provider reluctance about this disease-modifying therapy.
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Jessica Heath Templet is a certified Physician Assistant at the St. Jude Affiliate clinic in Baton Rouge, where she has been part of the clinic team since 2008. She participates in delivering quality patient care and strives to enhance the clinic experience through ongoing quality improvement projects. She received her Master’s degree in physician assistant studies from Our Lady of the Lake College School of Health Sciences in Baton Rouge, in the spring of 2008. She also received her undergraduate degrees in clinical laboratory science from Our Lady of the Lake College.
Prior to completing her physician assistant degree, she worked as a clinical laboratory scientist at Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center. Her clinical and research interests are in pediatric hematology/oncology, transfusion medicine, laboratory science, and sickle cell disease.
Online profile
Transition is the process of young people with sickle cell disease (SCD), a genetic blood disorder, learning to become more responsible for their health and transferring their health care to an adult healthcare provider. Learn about transitioning care with SCD, read tips to prepare for it, and find more resources to help manage transition. For teens with sickle cell disease, transition is part of maturing into an adult.
Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a genetic blood disorder affecting red blood cells. People with SCD have abnormally shaped red blood cells that block oxygen from reaching the body’s tissues and organs. SCD is present at birth, and mild to severe health problems, such as pain crises, infection, and stroke can affect people with SCD throughout their lifetime.
When a child with SCD is young, parents or other adult caregivers are responsible for managing the child’s health and healthcare needs. Parents or other adult caregivers will schedule doctor’s appointments, manage treatment schedules, and make sure the child is both eating healthy and sleeping well to reduce the severity and occurrence of pain crises and other SCD-related health problems.
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Some of the rules at college make it hard to succeed if you have a disability. Reasonable accommodations are the changes that colleges make to these rules to help students with disabilities succeed. If you have a disability, the rules about how many courses you have to take each semester, how many classes you can miss, or when the heat is turned on in the dorms may make it hard for you to succeed. Colleges count sickle cell disease (SCD) as a disability.
If SCD makes it hard for you to follow a rule at college, the college may have to change the rule. But the college only has to make “reasonable” changes. If a rule makes it hard for you to succeed, you owe it to yourself to ask for a reasonable accommodation.
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