Private Health Insurance

[The[cookie]Doctor]

I was going to post this in another thread but it was so irrelevant by the time I finished typing I thought I better start my own!

I just took out PHI [with Australian Unity] via iSelect.
It seemed the easiest way to compare cover etc and I think I have what I want.
But I guess I am curious...

With hospital cover, i thought all I wanted was a basic package - and I have somehow ended up covered for pregnancy and birth, which is grouse should I ever choose that option of care in the future but it wasn't really necessary.
The extras package is fairly extensive and definitely what i was looking for, i got it mostly for dental, physio, chiro.
After all these years of putting off getting it, i also realised that i put off using other services because of their expense, what i pay in PHI i will end up saving a fair bit from using those services so it worked out as well worth it, in theory at least.

For those of you that have cover, I guess my question is does a more 'top shelf' extras package tend to go hand in hand with high hospital cover? (particularly australian unity).

How much do you pay for your cover (monthly) and what does it include?

I am going to call them to clarify everything but interested to know what other families have etc.

[Yael]

I found iselect gave you really poor choices of what was on offer, and suggested a lot of the expensive ones.

We are with HCF, I have found them great for service, they payout well on things, have no gap dental and opitcal, and were the cheapest of almost all of them I tried.

[Liviam]

We are with HCF, I have found them great for service, they payout well on things, have no gap dental and opitcal, and were the cheapest of almost all of them I tried.

Same here

[Novella]

We are with HCF too, they seem to be the cheapest for what we need, after having this bub I will probably find out if we can cut the obstertrics/fertility cover to save money. We are using a mid to high range package I think. Paying $230 a month for family cover cant remeber how much per day hospital stay we have. We have used it for DH to have ankle surgery and physio after that and dental. I think over the last five years we are probably even on what we have paid in cover and what it would have cost us for the medical care we used up front. Bit of forced savings in a way,

[Olive]

there is also a government website similar to iselect that gives different results
i only have basic hospital (covered as a private paitent in public and private in private but shared room only)
it costs us around $75 a month, $200 excess maximum of twice a year per person (ive used it once already, have an op booked for november and if i need anything else this year i wont pay the excess again)

[The[cookie]Doctor]

there is also a government website similar to iselect that gives different results

I actually used it first and got Aust Unity with them as well, but a cheaper cover by about $50 a month I think.
I probably should have looked around myself a bit more, but the more I looked the more confused I got!

[Elocin]

I'm with MBF.

We have good hospital cover - I say good, because in the 3 years we've had, I'm the only one who's used it (IVF, d&c and birth next year) and it's covered everything we've needed it to. I actually just called and double checked that I'd be covered if the baby needs to go to neo-natal intensive care etc, and yep, everything is covered (lord only knows what I would've done if it wasn't covered).

We get no-gap dental for the kids, no-gap optical for all of us. DH and I have both claimed on acupuncture and I'm able to claim on pregnancy pilates as well.

I've not had one issue with them, always found them easy to understand. The only thing is, I wish I knew how much I would get back before I went... like with the dentist, DH and I both had a check up and both had different rebates back?

We pay about $260 a month at the moment. Worth every penny as far as I'm concerned.

ETA - forgot to say that we have a $250 per person, per year excess for hospital admission. I paid it when I went in for IVF, but not for the d&c. The only thing I should be out of pocket when I have the baby is the $250 excess and the Ob's fee's.

[Olive]

forgot to say im with HIF

[Doing my best]

I am with Medibank Private and have a medium hospital, but top extras.. The extras are more important to us, and I could still drop the hospital down another one and still be covered for what we need.. I personally like the way that I can have top cover in one aspect, and lower in another..

[MummyNaomi]

We are with Phoenix and pay about $280 p/month. Its awesome and and glad we have it, when DS was born we went private and did not pay a single cent. When he was admitted back into the private hospital for 3 days a week after we came home from his birth again we did not pay a single cent (and I had a room and food as well). It covered our IVF day surgery fees and we've used it for dental, physio and OB also.

I never plan to stop paying for PHI, in my book it's a must, especially when you have kids