kt - I've been doing a fair bit of research on this too. We're with Medibank Private and from memory they do offer some assistance with ART after a waiting period of 6 months. To what degree I'm not sure. My gf did say she didn't bother mucking around with private claims because Medicare take care of you.
Like what Willow and Bec have mentioned, you do get a decent rebate from Medicare.
Maybe you can ask your clinic if they have some paperwork which might give you a bit of an idea. I have all the guff MIVF gave me and it is helpful to see deposit req'd and out of pocket in black and white. One bonus is at least we are getting in nice and early in the year that way we'll get maximum bang for our buck over the threshold!
I read on the handouts they gave me, we wouldn't need to pay the total say $3800 and then claim back, we would be asked to pay the out of pocket difference upfront etc
When you are certain that you are going ahead with the IVF you do have a couple of appts, one with a councellor and in MIVF case, accounts appt and one with the nurses all on same day. I'm sure that at some stage you could discuss the financial side with them. Not everyone has thousands of $ just laying around waiting for something to spend it on (and quickly!)
Thanks for your replies ladies. I was at the shops today and had to go into Medicare to claim for all of the other scans and my last AIH cycle and the girl there gave me a bit of info about how much they will cover so I am not feeling too bad about it now. And Smudge as you said once you reach the safety net they cover a higher % for the rest of the year. She said that to reach it you would have to have $1000 out of pocket expenses and I suppose with IVF you would reach that pretty quickly.
Hi Kate,
We have been doing IVF for four years now, and knowing it was always going to be our only option, I spent months researching every private health fund before we made a decision.
The fund that covers more than anyone else is Manchester Unity.
We have been with them from 12 months before we started IVF in 2003.
For example, our last cycle cost us;
$3200 up front fee with IVF Australia.
$0.00 Hospital - Fully covered by health fund.
We got $2300 back, so out of pocket was approx $900.
Out of this $900, most of that is from having our embryos grown to blastocyst - this is $650 and not claimable by anyone.(Medicare or private health).
We got our statement from our health fund a few weeks back and it showed that the hospital fees were approx $1500 - our fund covered 100%.
Without the health cover, our total out of pocket expense would have been $2400 instead of $900.
(We did get the 80% rebate from medicare, because it was our 2nd cycle for the year, which is why the gap was so small. Manchester Unity still covered the hospital 100% the first cycle of the year as well.)
I also have acupuncture done, and this costs me $40 per session... Manchester Unity pay us $20 back for every $40 spent on this, so we've saved a LOT of money in this area, too.
I also went to Weight Watchers for 8 weeks to lose the weight I'd put on from the previous cycle before starting this cycle - this cost me approx $170, and I got $130 back from health cover...
I think if you are aware of what you can claim, it is most definately beneficial.
If you look on their website, their top cover (healthmate executive) has a special IVF section... this is the cover we have.
Its $168 month for us - there's 3 of us, but thats absolute top cover for all 3 of us.... it certainly worked out much better than any of the other funds... and I'm constantly checking them to see if anyone else is offerring anything better!!!
Sorry for my massive post, but hope it helps you out!!!!!!!!!!!
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