Please tell me about YOUR Private Health Cover

[MissM]

I have been contemplating PHI for a while now.

I am not too sure if it is even worthwhile us getting it.

Mainly we would use it for Dental, massage (LOVE my remedial's!!) & natural therapies, glasses/contacts, obviously hospital cover.

Explain the whole ambulance cover thing to me - like do you have OOP expense for that also?

How much do you pay per month? What are you covered for? How many ppl? Anything else you can think of that I may have missed

Thanks so much!

[onthefly]

There's a website somewhere that lets you compare lots of different policies from different companies.... can't remember what it is.
You can do an online quote with each of them and figure out what you're entitled to and what you get coverage for.

Extras like dental etc often aren't really worth it. Hospital cover they generally have low, medium and high - it just depends what you're likely to need cover for. Ambulance is usually included and no charge for medically necessary transport. Otherwise there may be a cover depending on your policy.

Policies can be single or family (including children).

If you're young and healthy, you may be better off putting money aside in case you need medical treatment. However, you could get caught out if something comes up in the near term (ie, before you've had time to accumulate enough).

To avoid the Medicare surcharge you need to have hospital cover I think.

And hospital cover has a 1-year waiting period before you can claim, so you pay in for a year before you can get anything out.

[Daytona's Mummy]

I'm with medibank and they are just awesome! We are on the premium plus cover with no excess which is the highest cover they have. We went for that one cause at the time we were planning on trying IVF (didn't end up needing it) so your fam prob wouldn't need that much cover, but we pay about 150 per mth. we had no OOP for going to hospital and if for some reason the hospital can't give us a private room, medibank pay us $50 per day for each day were in hospital. Just went to the dentist with an almost $900 bill and the whole lot was covered. we also get $220 a year to spend on things like if we ever do have OOP costs, you can use that to cover it or any extras you may want or need. We pay ambulance levy in our electricity bills so I'm not sure if we also pay for it in our cover but I know we are covered and thats all I care. we also get free extras like message, natral theripists, some back on some health things, someone said about gym membership but I never checked cause just saying the word makes me tired!! lol. We are also covered for heaps of other things too many to list & remember, but we're really happy! They also came to the hospital when I had daytona to make sure if i was happy with everything and added the new bub to our policy and the price has not gone up with the extra person.
I think that website to compare companies is iselect or there may be others. I basically checked on all the comparison sites then went onto medibanks site and just went with the cheapest quote for exactly the same thing.

[Miss.September]

There's a website somewhere that lets you compare lots of different policies from different companies.... can't remember what it is.
You can do an online quote with each of them and figure out what you're entitled to and what you get coverage for.

It's iselect. I rang them and by going through everything we needed with the very friendly and helpful guy on the phone, I saved us $35 a month and we have more in our cover. He even gave me time to go away and think about it. I'm now with Latrobe Health, in Melb. It's a non-for-profit fund. I haven't claimed yet, but before I joined I asked the lovely BB ladies and only good reports came back. Only catch is that I have to have ambulance cover taken out seperate, but that's no big deal - we were doing that anyway with the more expensive fund.

[Jaffaz]

Wow $150pm makes ours really expensive. We are with Defence Health on Top Extras (highest cover with them, no excess) for $290pm. It is expensive but due to my boys medical issues and having DS2 at a private hospital we have got value for money over the last few years.

From talking to friends recently who are a similar age and same number of children, they pay around $250ish pm so this seems pretty average.

[allycat06]

iSelect doesn't compare all the bigger (sometimes cheaper) companies such as HBA, NIB, Medibank etc so something to take into account......

We're with NIB, just got rid of our hospital cover, for us it was a waste of money. We're both young and very healthy and I gave birth in a public hospital and planning a homebirth next time round so it's pretty irrelevant to us. Our extras is about $50 a month (for 2 adults under 30 and a baby) and includes pretty much anything you can think of. We use it a fair bit and go to the dentist twice a year.

Our combined hosp + extras was $130 a month with medium level cover and a $500 excess. Ambulance cover comes under extras and there are no out of pockets and you are covered from day one of the policies, whereas other things with have a waiting period of some sort. You need combined cover if you earn over 70k to avoid the Medicare surcharge.

[black_rose]

We pay $780 a quarter for top hospital and extras, with a $500 excess. I found that although iselect recommended nib the policy they chose wasn't the best for us so I went direct instead.

[ShootingStar]

We just have ambulence cover for the whole family. We are all pretty healthy so dont really need anything else at the moment. We pay $53 per year for the 4 of us. Its something that dads always pushed to me to make essential as if ever an ambulence is called for you, whether you really need it or not, you have to pay for it, and its not cheap. This covers the full cost. Especially now with kids, you never know what will happen. My girlfriend's son has already had an ambulence called for him at preschool once.

[MissM]

Wow - So much info! Gave me something to think about.

Thanks Girls

[Miss.September]

iSelect doesn't compare all the bigger (sometimes cheaper) companies such as HBA, NIB, Medibank etc so something to take into account......

The guy that I spoke to from iselect gave me NIB as an option

[Nettie]

We've recently changed from Mutual Community to Medibank Private because I could claim a wider range of things (like my new orthotics). A few things are dearer now (like my chiropractor), but overall, I'm happy with Medibank. We pay about $90 a fortnight for extras (intermediate cover) and hospital.

I've chosen to have hospital cover in case I need elective surgery. The public wait list can be months or years long - but privately you can usually get it done within months. Just something to consider.

We've also got ambulance cover with SA Ambulance as the insurance only covers 'life threatening' ambulance call-outs. So if you fall off a ladder and break your leg - you could still get a bill It's $32 a year for the whole family to be covered for ANYTHING. Gives me peace of mind so I wouldn't think twice about calling an ambulance if I thought I needed one.

[nic]

deleted

[rubibaby]

my family and i are with hcf health insurance and it costs us approx $200pm for hospital cover and extras such as dental and pregnancy cover.
we got the cover before we had our second child and we'll keep it for a while longer. i like knowing that if anyone of us needed medical attention, we would get it without delay.

[rubibaby]

my family and i are with hcf health insurance and it costs us approx $200pm for hospital cover and extras such as dental and pregnancy cover.
we got the cover before we had our second child and we'll keep it for a while longer. i like knowing that if anyone of us needed medical attention, we would get it without delay.

[Visitor6]

Medibank Private are soon to be my ex insurer.

They cover nothing useful in BLue Ribon extras to any successful limit. 21 dollars for a 100 dollar script.
Exercise physiology, which is a mainstream profession and part of the Medicare Enhanced GP Program is considered a nutural therapy as is rmedial massage so you have a couple of visits and you lose out still paying buckets all year. You want insurance that covers prevanetative health as much as restorative interventions. you'd think they'd jump at the chance to save money as an insurer-nope.

If you want a choice of specialist for elective treatments, use private health cover.

Don't make the assumption that Private Health Insurance somehow gives you special privelege rights when you are crook--the old I want a private room is a good one--if they are available and not more appropriately required for others you may get one. you wont get seen quicker because of PHI-- people are seen in order of need for example in Emergencies.

Emergency care in a private hospital including facility fees are not covered by health insurance. In a private emergency, you will see the on call specialist.

Want to pick your OB then private it is.

If you or your bub is sick--public is the way. Major pead and neonate ICUs are in the public system. If you are sick from an OB process--> really sick--then again public you should go.

Ambulance cover. I would suggest that you avoid private health insurance ambulance cover like the plague. It is a scam. They must be emergencies and even then they may reject all or part of the claim. Australian Unity has cover for ambulance in Victoria, that if you used it for one trip to hospital (you would use it all up). They couldn't reply to me on this one... a little scared.

Take out Ambulance Membership as applicable via your own state service--it's gives you reciprocal coverage Australia Wide.

[MissM]

Wow, Tanks Stretcher bearer.

You def sshed light!