Like Trillian, I'm not a huge fan of iselect either. They only have only a few funds from the many available.
If you google for Privatehealth dot gov dot au, it is the governments website for every insurance policy from every health fund (or so they at least claim)
My extras cover does cover things like accupuncture. BUT I pay $70 a session for my accupuncture and they give me $13.20 back to a max of $300 a year I think. And given that my extras costs me more than $300 a year you want to be getting it for more than just that.
Fertility stuff is only covered for your hospital stays - it doesn't cover things like specialist appointments or the drugs (except the non-pbs ones - and then it is only $20something that they cover) or anything like that.
I suppose what I am saying is that if you don't imagine youself wanting to choose a specialist for anything then I am not really sure what worth it would be to you.
The advantages of private health insurance are:
you can pick your specialist
you can jump public waiting lists for elective procedures (and pretty much everything that isn't threatening your life is 'elective')
Extras cover is worth it if you wear glasses, see a dentist regularly, have non-pbs medications (I'm pretty sure this one is in extras) and use some alternative therapies (but not all extras covers cover these things)
Also keep in mind that alot of PHI companies have waiting periods. It could be 12mths for O n G and some extras. Also when they have a flexi bonus they will only pay on that on some services. Very confusing. They don't pay alot on alot of things like podiatrist, and so on, you need to do your homework on that one. Even go as far as get the item numbers the practitioner uses for the service and ask the PHI what they would pay on that service.
I have PHI and have gone private for all my O n G stuff. Hospital has cost me only the $250 excess and that's it for the whole stay. As everyone else has mentioned most of the out of hospital has been through Medciare.
I don't have to pay the excess for when one of kids is admitted to Hospital, this has come in very handy as my DS2 has had two lots of grometts, and adenoids removed and is about to go in for another procedure of Friday and the Hospital part is not costing me anything.
If I didn't have PHI I could have been on public waiting list for a very long time with him.
I would say we are in front.
It takes some leg work to check out all of the insurers if you're interested in PHI, because the policies are so varied and the cover (particularly extras) can't be compared by price alone. And then the same insurer will often have different policies/products that offer different levels of cover in different areas.
PHI was more a long-term approach for me. I had optometry (contact lenses), physio issues, etc and then later found out there was to be a HUGE dental expense. Thanks to PHI I have been able to have everything I need done without shelling out $$ I don't have. It's definitely been worth the cost for us, but not everyone might have as many things to worry about. Yes, there are annual limits and lifetime limits on some procedures, but depending on the type of cover they can be enough. You also have to bear in mind that what you think may classify as one type of procedure actually falls into another category in the system. So oral surgery for some things, dental for others, orthodontic for others - it all got too confusing for me!
You don't have to worry about cost penalties on PHI until you're over 30. If the current legislation the govt is trying to get through is successful, those who earn above a certain level will no longer qualify for the 30% PHI rebate, so it's worth checking if your income is high.
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