Dealing with health insurance and other benefits can be very confusing. If you have questions, please call your insurance representative to better understand how your policy works and what it covers.

Please bring your child's insurance identification card with you to UCSF Children's Hospital. Your insurance may require prior authorization for your child to be seen by a UCSF doctor. If so, please have your child's primary care doctor or insurance company fax your authorization to the UCSF doctor's office and bring a copy to the appointment to ensure you aren't billed for medical services covered by your insurance. You may be called for insurance or authorization information before your appointment.

Your insurance may require an office co-payment. If so, you will be asked to make your co-payment in full at your visit. If your visit is not covered by a health plan or insurance, you will be asked to pay for your visit on arrival. For your convenience, we accept cash, checks and credit cards.

UCSF Children's Hospital contracts with many major health insurance companies. A list of health insurance companies that provide coverage for our services is available below.

Our hospitals and doctors do not contract with or participate in any health insurance discount card programs. They do, however, accept payments made through health savings account programs. We also can make financial arrangements for your coverage with other health insurance companies, if the companies are willing to do so. Please ask your insurance company or your UCSF doctor to contact our Health Plan Strategy and Contracting office at (415) 353–4536

For background information, a glossary of health insurance terms and an explanation of private and public health coverage are available.

The following is a list of insurance companies that currently have contracts with us.

HEALTH PLAN	TYPE OF PLAN
Aetna (Except Aexcel Network)	All Plans
Aetna Citizen	HMO
Aetna Elect Choice (EC)	EPO
Aetna Managed Choice (MC)	POS
Aetna Open Choice	PPO
Aetna QPOS	POS
Aetna Select Choice	HMO
Aetna Traditional Choice	Indemnity
ASMED Health Partnership	PPO
Beech Street	PPO
Blue Cross CaliforniaCare	HMO
Blue Cross CalilforniaCare Medi-Cal	HMO
Blue Cross CalilforniaCare Medi-Cal Healthy Families	EPO
Blue Cross CalilforniaCare Medi-Cal Healthy Families	HMO
Blue Cross Prudent Buyer	PPO
Blue Cross Medi-Cal/Healthy Families	HMO
Blue Cross Plus	POS
Blue Shield Access +	HMO
Blue Shield HMO Plus	POS
Blue Shield Preferred	PPO
Blue Shield Preferred Plus	PPO
Blue Shield SELECT	PPO
Choice Care/Human	PPO
CIGNA HMO	HMO
CIGNA POS	POS
CIGNA PPO	PPO
CorVel Corp.	PPO
Definity Health	PPO
First Health	EPO
First Health PPO	PPO
Foster Farms (Employer Group using Stanislaus Network)	PPO
Great West Healthcare	All Plans
Great West Healthcare	HMO
Health Net ELECT/Health Net SELECT EPO	POS
Health Net HMO	HMO
Health Net Seniority Plus	HMO/MediCare
Humana/Choice Care	PPO
Interplan Corp. EPO	EPO
Interplan Corp. PPO	PPO
Kaiser Permanente Dual Choice/PHCS Network	PPO
Kaiser Permanente Added Choice/PHCS Network	POS
Merced Foundation for Medical Care	PPO
Multiplan (Includes Admar, BPS, Formost, PHCS)	PPO
Pacific Health Alliance	PPO
PacifiCare Choice	POS
PacifiCare HMO	HMO
PacifiCare PPO	PPO
PPO NEXT	PPO
San Francisco Health Plan Healthy Families	HMO Medi-Cal
San Francisco Health Plan (Medi-Cal)	HMO
San Francisco Health Plan/SF Cares for Kids	HMO Medi-Cal
San Joaquin Foundation for Health Care	PPO/EPO
Stanislaus Foundation for Medical Care	PPO/EPO
TriCare Extra / TriWest (CHAMPUS)	PPO
TriCare Prime / TriWest (CHAMPUS)	HMO/POS
UCSF Student Health Services
United HealthCare CHOICE Plus POS	POS
United HealthCare CHOICE PPO	PPO
United HealthCare EPO	EPO
United HealthCare Options PPO	PPO
United HealthCare Select HMO	HMO
United HealthCare Select Plus POS	POS
USAccess/Aetna	POS