Ella Diehl, Special to The Denisonian—
The 2023 academic year brought more change to the Hoaglin Wellness Center, with a different payment plan and slightly adjusted care hours.
Over the past few years, the Wellness Center was in the midst of changing and developing their services. Most notably, the previous changes involved a partnership with Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and a location shift from a previous location in Whisler Hall.
The most significant change this year concerns payment processing. Dr. Amy Ehrlich, program director for the Denison/OSU Partnership detailed this change and explained that previously, student billing was sent to student accounts then the students had to send the claim to insurance to request payment coverage.
The new system called “Care Everywhere” made the payment process simpler by removing the middle-step.
“Instead of going to student accounts, your claim is submitted to insurance. We do that automatically for you,” Enhrlich said. This change was first put into effect during August of 2023.
The payment process change was a direct effect of the partnership with Ohio State University. The partnership allowed Denison and Ohio State to share resources as they found areas of alignment in their wellness and health missions.
Dr. Michelle Barcelona, nurse practitioner and Associate Director of Medical Services at Hoaglin, explained that the Wellness Center listened to student input and searched for a way to send billing directly to insurance.
Barcelona added that, “it’s been nice as a provider, because I can see notes from home from your providers that I wouldn’t have had access to before, which has been also nice for continuity of care with patients.”
Shelby McNeal ‘26 said, “I have been satisfied with the care I’ve received from the Wellness Center. I primarily go to workout classes at the Wellness Center which I really enjoy, but I know they have a wide variety of wellness opportunities for students.”
Although the most drastic change is the shift in payment process, a shift in the hours of care provided also occurred with the start of the 2023 academic year. The Hoaglin Wellness Center is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. Walk-in appointments occur on Monday and Friday from 8 – 10:30 a.m.
Previously, a 24-hour nurse was available. This service has since phased out.
“I think some of the questions were like, why did we give up overnight care? We started looking at the data, and we were serving less than 1% of the student population at night,” Barcelona said. “With that being less than 1%, it made more sense to allocate our resources during the day so that we could offer a wider range of appointments.”
Despite this intentional change, students still express discontent with limited wellness center hours.
Ava Sinex ‘27 in particular hoped for more access to the Wellness Center on the weekends, especially to accomodate testing like that for COVID-19.
Due to the center being closed on the weekends, Sinex had to wait until Monday’s walk-in hours for a test – the results of which were positive for COVID-19.
“I wish I could have gotten a diagnosis earlier,” Sinex said.
Fiona Martinili ‘27 also expressed similar discontent: “I understand why they have those hours, but I also think that they’re very limiting. Students need care outside of weekday business hours, so I personally think they should open the wellness center on weekends to allow students to get the care they need.”
Ehrlich noted that while the 24-hour care options are not available at the Wellness center, Wellfleet insurance, which is covered by the Denison health insurance plan, offers a 24 hour hotline.