Health Coverage for Postdoctoral Scholars
From Dr. Jean Morrison, University Provost and Chief Academic Officer
Boston University is committed to providing a supportive training environment for all of our postdoctoral scholars, including offering benefits programs that remain competitive with those of our peers. I am pleased to announce that we will launch a new program of benefits providing health coverage for (non-employee) postdoctoral fellows beginning July 1, 2016. Postdoctoral fellows at Boston University are scholars who are compensated via external sources (e.g. training grants, private/foreign fellowships), and these individuals are given non-compensated (non-employee) appointments at Boston University. The health care options provided in this program for non-employee postdoctoral fellows will be equivalent to those options available to our employee postdoctoral scholar population, whose benefit programs will remain unchanged.
The cost of this new program will be shared by both the non-employee postdoctoral fellows and Boston University, just as the cost of health care coverage for employee postdoctoral scholars is mutually shared. In our pilot year, postdoctoral fellows will pay the equivalent rate for coverage as employees, with the University subsidizing the remaining costs through centralized funding from the Office of the Provost. In subsequent years, alternative cost-sharing models will be explored through learning from the best practices of our peer institutions.
In order to finalize this program, Professional Development & Postdoctoral Affairs will be working with Human Resources to conduct a census of postdoctoral fellows eligible in taking advantage of this new benefits program. All eligible postdocs should fill out the census form by January 22, 2016: /research/information-for/professional-development-postdoctoral-affairs/health-coverage-for-non-employee-postdocs/.