Suicide Amongst College Students

I came across another student about a year ago; I will call him “Paul”. He called into our office because he didn’t think we were paying enough on his medical claims. He was left with a patient responsibility of about $10,000. I finally had to take the phone call because the conversation had escalated to a point where the customer service representative was unable to assist him, not to mention that he was becoming quite irate. As I spoke to him and explained why his claims paid the way they did, I browsed through his claims history. Nearly every claim that we had received for him, other than his current injury, was related to depression and drug abuse. Before our conversation ended, he mentioned that he should just go ahead and kill himself since the insurance company didn’t want to do anything to help him. This statement alarmed me, especially since I saw what so many of his claims were for. I took the liberty to pull his file and see if we had any medical records for him. Once I saw that we did, I called his therapist and let him know who I was and why I was calling.

As I read through the records to see why this student had reached this point in his life where he would even state that he would kill himself, it became very clear. For years, this student had struggled to fit in because of his obesity. College started off roughly until he found drugs. While taking drugs, he was never hungry and the weight was coming off. Even though the weight was coming off, he was turning into a person no one wanted to be around. The odds had fallen against him but he did begin seeing a therapist to help with the depression and drug abuse. He was doing much better now but any time life threw a curve ball his way, he was ready to give up and end everything. Thankfully, in this situation, he didn’t kill himself.