Health

Steps for Preparing to Go Abroad while at UW-Madison:

1. Watch the Travel Tutorial.
2. Review Travax documents (see “Important Documents”). These documents are excerpts from Travax, the website UHS (University Health Services) uses to prepare students for travel. You can check the recommended vaccines against what you have already had to get a better sense of what vaccines you will need before your trip. You are not responsible for determining what vaccinations you will need—this will be done at your travel clinic visit. You can review the CDC’s immunization schedule as well for help if you aren’t sure what constitutes completion of a certain vaccine series.
3. Review the malaria map to see if you will be living or traveling within a malarious area.
4. Review UHS’ “Immunization Prices List” document. It is a great idea to call your insurance to ask them whether the vaccines you will need are covered by your insurance, and if so, where they are covered. If you have SHIP insurance, most vaccines are typically covered—you may call SHIP to discuss cost at 608-265-5232. Some insurances require you to get vaccines “in network” and some insurances cover them at UHS. At UHS, we are not able to directly bill outside insurances (any insurance that is not SHIP). If you receive vaccines here and have outside insurance, the bill will come to you initially. Then, you can pay it and submit the bill to your insurance to request reimbursement.
5. Schedule a travel visit. You are welcome to schedule the visit at UHS or a primary care provider’s office. If you schedule the visit at UHS, please schedule it as a Travel Nurse Visit.

***  Make sure you schedule your visit well ahead of time to ensure that you have time to receive all the vaccinations you will need. The “Immunization Prices List” document has schedules attached to all of the immunizations that UHS has. For example, the section for Hepatitis B reads: “Hepatitis B Vaccine (0, 1 month, 6 months).” This means that hepatitis B is a series of three vaccinations, one on the first day you start the series, one 1 month later, and another 6 months after the first dose you received. Looking at the vaccine schedule will give you an idea of how early you need to schedule your visit. In general, the last dose of most vaccines should be given at least 2 weeks before you arrive in the country.