Updated 12.17.20
Menlo School’s Partnership with One Medical
Frequently Asked Questions
As we prepare to reopen school safely, we are excited to announce a new partnership with One Medical and its “Healthy Together” program. The program is an important addition to the adaptations we have already made to ensure that we can safeguard the health of our community in the event that we are able to teach and learn on campus. Given the importance of regular testing and tracing in the larger fight against Covid, we are excited to announce that One Medical’s benefits are available now and will continue throughout the 2020-21 school year.
Below, please find a series of frequently asked questions to help orient you to One Medical’s offerings. As the conditions for reopening continue to develop and change, we want to acknowledge that this information may be updated as the need arises.
Please direct additional questions about this partnership or our broader response to COVID-19 to questions@menloschool.org, from which we will also update this page regularly as needed.
Registration and Technical Support
Q. Who will have access to One Medical’s membership?
A. Menlo is sponsoring One Medical’s membership for all employees, students, and their family members.
Q. Who is considered a family member for purposes of One Medical’s membership?
A. The member’s spouse or domestic partner and dependent children. In the case of Menlo students who are minors, a parent or legal guardian will need to become a member and enroll the child(ren) in their membership.
Q. What is included in One Medical’s membership?
A. The membership-based primary care practice offers comprehensive care focused on wellness and prevention:
Q. When will my One Medical membership be active?
A. Immediately.
Q. What are the costs of the One Medical membership and services?
A. The membership fee for employees, students and their families is paid for by Menlo. Included in the cost of membership are:
For all other primary care services, including Remote Visits, One Medical works with your health insurance just like a typical doctor’s office would. That means they bill your insurance for each office visit and you cover your copayment, coinsurance, and deductible.
If you are a benefited employee, please see below in this Q&A for a list of Menlo health insurance plans and whether One Medical is part of their network. If you are not a benefited Menlo employee, be sure to confirm your insurance coverage before using One Medical services.
Deductibles can have a wide range, so check your health insurance plan to understand the amount you're responsible for.
If lab tests were ordered by your provider, you may receive a separate bill for those fees from One Medical’s partners at Quest or LabCorp.
Q. What is the difference between 24/7 virtual care and Remote Visits?
A. Virtual care works by putting you in touch with a member of One Medical’s virtual medical team through a few different channels, day or night, to talk about your health concerns.
With the One Medical app you can choose between answering a questionnaire about your issue, sending a secure message, getting prescriptions renewed, or having a Video Chat with a provider. Video Chats are just what they sound like – real-time video calls with an on-call provider from a virtual medical team, which are great for addressing any urgent or time-sensitive health questions. All these care channels are included in membership at no additional cost.
During regular business hours, you can also book a Remote Visit with your provider. A Remote Visit is a regular, scheduled appointment held over video with a One Medical provider to address any health or wellness topic, just like you would in-office. Remote Visits are handled through insurance just like standard office visits.
Q. I am a Menlo employee. Do Menlo-sponsored health insurance plans cover primary care services provided by One Medical?
A. It depends on the plan. The following table shows Menlo-sponsored plans and the level of coverage for One Medical’s primary care services:
Plan Name | Coverage Level for One Medical |
Aetna HDHP | In-network |
Aetna PPO | In-network |
Aetna HMO | In-network only through Hill Physicians Group. |
Aetna Sutter Joint Venture HDHP | Out-of-network |
Aetna Sutter Joint Venture PPO | Out-of-network |
Kaiser - any plan | Out-of-network |
Q. I am a Menlo employee or a Menlo School student. Will I be responsible for the cost of testing?
A. It depends. If the testing is required by Menlo for you to be physically on campus, then any cost not covered by your insurance will be covered by Menlo.
If testing is not required by Menlo, then you will be responsible for any costs not covered by your insurance. It is always a good idea to check with your insurance or One Medical first to make sure you are fully aware of any costs you may be responsible for.
If you are a family member of a Menlo employee or of a Menlo student, you are responsible for the costs of any testing not covered by your insurance. Again, check with your insurance or One Medical first to make sure you are fully aware of any costs you may be responsible for.
Q. How do I register for One Medical’s membership with Menlo School?
A. Log in to Menlo’s website and follow the steps on this page to register using Menlo’s sponsorship code.
Q. Who do I call if I encounter any problems registering or using the site or app?
A. For technical issues with the app or your online account, please email techsupport@onemedical.com or call 1(888) 663-6331.
Q. How is my medical data reported to Menlo?
A. Unless you sign a specific waiver allowing us access—which we are not requiring—your individual medical data is not directly reported to Menlo School, as that would be a HIPAA violation. Your relationship with One Medical and your doctors is as secure as it otherwise would be if it were not sponsored by Menlo School.
However, in order to mount an effective fight against Covid and to ensure that we are making data-driven decisions about the safety of our physical campus, we will ask One Medical to share daily and weekly aggregate reports of all screening questions and tests conducted at their sites by members of our community. These reports will not be linked to your personal identifiable information.
Q. Is testing required in order to come to campus?
A. Yes. In addition to social distancing and the wearing of masks, regular symptom tracking, testing, and tracing are crucial in the fight against Covid-19. We are grateful to have the opportunity to rely on One Medical for its up-to-date research and see its role as crucial to our ability to bring our community on campus safely.
Q. Will I be required to retest throughout the school year? If so, how often?
A. Yes. As of October 26, 2020, we are requiring all community members to show evidence of having taken a negative PCR test weekly (every seven days). One Medical will offer on-site testing three days per week on campus, starting January 4, 2021, which we anticipate continuing through the remainder of the school year.
Q. When new technologies become available, will the Menlo community have access to them?
A. Yes. One of the primary benefits of partnering with One Medical is having access to their state-of-the-art testing capabilities; as new testing procedures evolve, we can rest assured that they will be on the cutting edge of adopting the least invasive tests with the shortest response time.
Currently, there are two tests available:
In order to return to school, you will need to show evidence of a negative PCR test, have ceased all travel outside of Northern California two weeks prior, and be absent any high-risk symptoms in your daily symptoms tracking through the One Medical app. The antibody tests are available to you, but not required to physically return to campus.
Q. Is the test reliable?
A. PCR tests are the most reliable testing method we currently have for detecting active coronavirus in even asymptomatic individuals. However, given that a few days may pass before the virus starts replicating in the nose and throat, it is important still to exercise caution and good judgment when assessing your risk of infection.
We recommend you time your baseline test to a few days after you have engaged in any activities that pose risk of exposure to ensure that your test is as accurate as possible within the two week window of your anticipated return to campus. If those activities include travel outside of Northern California, please remember that we are asking you first to self-isolate for 14 days before you take your PCR test; a negative PCR test will not suffice on its own.
Q. How do I schedule testing with One Medical?
A. Open the One Medical app
Q. May I get tested with a provider other than One Medical?
A. We encourage you to get tested with One Medical wherever possible, as that will provide the greatest ease of access for you and the most streamlined tracing process for us. However, for some of us, it will occasionally be necessary to test outside of One Medical.
If you do choose to get tested elsewhere, please retain receipt of your test results, including the date you were tested, and email them to Joan Barada (jbarada@menloschool.org).
Q. My health insurance provider is Kaiser and I’d prefer to test directly through them rather than One Medical. How can I do so?
Please see Kaiser’s Covid-19 testing information website here. It contains detailed information for Kaiser members about everything related to the process, safety, and cost of testing at one of their sites.
If, at any point this year, you are unable to get a test through Kaiser, you now have the additional benefit/backup of booking a One Medical appointment. Since the availability of testing appointments can vary quite a bit, we hope this will give you yet another avenue for access.
Q. I went online to get an appointment with One Medical, but I can’t get one near me in time for my anticipated return to campus. What should I do?
A. First, try calling One Medical directly. There may be additional appointment options that weren’t, at first, visible to you online.
If that doesn’t work, please contact hello@onemedical.com. Please let them know your and your students’ full legal names and any appointment-related requests you have. They are typically able to resolve appointment issues within 24 hours.
Q. How do I show evidence of my One Medical badge when I arrive at campus?
A. The easiest way to do so is to download One Medical’s smartphone app and, before leaving home:
You may also do your daily check-in via One Medical’s website at www.onemedical.com. In that case, we suggest you download or print a photo of your badge to bring to campus with you.
Q. What do the different One Medical badges signify?
A. There are three badge colors: green, blue, and red.
Ultimately, it is the expectation of Menlo School that all employees and their child(ren) who are not feeling well, or who may be showing signs of illness on any given day, remain home.
Q. How do I know if my specific travel plans require me to self-isolate before taking a PCR test to return to campus?
We see travel outside of our local region—especially that done by plane—as increasing your risk of exposure and so we are urging a cautious approach.
We also realize we caused confusion with the mixing of terms in our initial One Medical announcement, in which we referred both to the “Bay Area” and to “Northern California” in our guidelines. We have since updated our FAQ materials to say that only travel outside of “Northern California” requires a 14-day self-isolation period before taking a PCR test. Therefore, travel to Tahoe, Truckee, Carmel, Monterey, and Mendocino, in general, do not require a self-quarantine period.
However, even for the destinations above, please consider if you reduced, as much as possible, your risk from travel. For example:
- Did you travel solely by car?
- Did you live only with your usual household unit?
- Did you stay at a family home whose cleaning you oversee?
- Did you effectively self-isolate in that home?
- Did you wear masks and practice social distancing in the surrounding region? And avoid indoor, especially unmasked, activities?
If you answered “yes” to all of the above, you likely have a similar risk profile to someone who has stayed in the Bay Area and so may not need to self-isolate before testing.
Ultimately, though, we can only provide guidelines and recommendations; we want to stress that reopening school is a collaborative effort and one that will require also your good judgment to navigate, not only now but also throughout the coming months. We encourage you to take the school’s conservative stance towards protecting our public health when you choose whether or not to quarantine before a PCR test.
Q. I have a spouse or family member who frequently travels for business and is planning to do so before school reopens. If I’m not the one traveling (but I’m a student, staff, or faculty member), does my housemates’ travel require me to self-isolate before returning to campus?
As with the answer above, we urge you to use your best judgment in this case. While we are not requiring a 14-day self-isolation period for household members who were not, themselves, the ones traveling, we do urge you to consider that the risk of exposure to one family member quickly becomes the risk of exposure of all those living in the house, unless you are practicing extreme cleaning and other social distancing methods within your household.
As you use your judgment, please track carefully the health of the family member who has been traveling, and encourage them to follow a testing protocol that might help you to determine if they have had an exposure event. In particular, if anyone in the household--including but not limited to the family member who has traveled--shows signs of the onset of illness, please stay home or keep your student home until the affected person has been evaluated by a healthcare professional.