What is iCare?

Why iCare?

Identification of immigrant health issues in the U.S. healthcare system

Problems Identified

As international students studying in the U.S., many of us have been overwhelmed by the complex U.S. healthcare system and the price of the healthcare services it provides. Sometimes, we even joke that the last thing that one may say before passing out has got to be “don’t call the ambulance,” since the bill would be too expensive for us to afford. After arriving in the U.S., I have witnessed many of our peers confused about what is or is not covered by the student health insurance plan. Indeed, pages and pages of insurance policies and their obscure terminologies are no doubt a headache even for native English speakers, let alone the language barrier that international students have to face when navigating through them. Therefore, the co-founders of iCare, Victoria Li and Erika Cao, started the organization with the goal to help international students better understand the student health insurance plan and possible add-on insurance options (such as ophthalmological and dental care services).

Stories from the Co-founders

Erika's Personal Anecdote

The habit of saving is deeply-rooted in Chinese culture. Back in high school, I worked at a pop-up clinic in Seattle that was run solely by volunteers and the medical faculties of nearby hospitals to provide free medical services to community members. As an interpreter, my main job was to assist Mandarin-speaking patients in the community in seeking free medical services at the clinic. After helping a few patients, I noticed that most of them are uninsured and have almost health problems in all parts of the body. Some of them have diabetes but only dwell on the pills their relatives brought back from China; some of them have long-term toothaches and blurry vision and are not vaccinated at all.

“看病太贵啦，保险也看不懂啊，能撑着就不去看啦。（It’s too expensive to see a doctor and I don’t understand the insurance, so I would just hold on (to these health problems) as much as I can).“ commented one of the patients I worked with on the US healthcare system.

In fact, these patients represent thousands of Chinese members of the community and the problem they struggle with: lost in the myriad of insurance options, complicated instructions, and the high price of medical service fees, they would rather tolerate the pain and inconveniences than choose to seek help.

We want to establish a platform where we could utilize the tool of the internet to expand our roles from, not just interpreters in person, but ambassadors online to help more patients with their struggles with healthcare, and to cross the language barriers and financial struggles to their journey to a more painless, strong, and healthy life.

Victoria's Personal Anecdote

As part of a class on racial and ethnic health disparities, I have learned that the U.S. spends 4.1 trillion dollars annually on medical care. It is then more astonishing when I found out that immigrants in the U.S. actually had better health status in their home country before moving abroad than after settling in the U.S. This phenomenon is the exact opposite of my expectation as I would expect with all the money spent on healthcare, people living in the U.S. should have the best overall health outcome in the world. This is clearly not the case. Subsequently, important questions that these statistics raised in my heart are: where did the money go? What can I do to help optimize the health outcomes of the immigrants?

Though I do not have a clear solution for the former question, my solution for the latter one is to found iCare—a service organization that aims to help international students navigate the U.S. healthcare system and provide guidance for immigrants and non-immigrant aliens in the U.S., particularly the Chinese population in the greater Nashville area, gain better access to medical care.