Thank you all so much for your information!
I'm still not 100% sure what I want to do. But Public is sounding ok at the moment
Although everything is so daunting cause its my first!
So confusing! Yikes!
Thanks again! Keep the experiences coming loving reading all about it
You could also choose to have a private midwife and get to know them during your pregnancy and have them with you for your birth at a public hospital or have them with you for a homebirth.
Hi there, congrats on your pregnancy! Very exciting!
I've had both experiences - a private hospital (St Vincent's Private) with an Obs and a public hospital with midwives, through the Family Birth Centre at the Mercy in Heidelberg.
If you know you want to go private, I'd suggest ringing both the Obs you'd like and hospital direct to ask about fees. It is all so different, best to go straight to the source.
But the public system in Melbourne is generally great. I couldn't fault my second delivery - it was a fantastic experience. I had a pretty good experience with the private hospital and Obs, but basically with #2 baby I was going to end up $2.5k out of pocket and I couldn't afford that, so we switched to private.
For #3 baby, I has just booked back into the Mercy Family Birth Centre as it was great so I'm excited to be going back there.
With regards to claiming back through Medicare - the thresholds have changed for Obstetrics, so even though it doesn't matter about private health insurance with an Obstetrician, you won't be able to claim as much back through Medicare. Hence my decision to go public.
Obstetrics is now capped at about $280 claimable through Medicare, regardless of your safety net. So if the Obs you like is going to charge you $4,000, you will end up $3,720 out of pocket Then you'd have to add on private hospital costs... which if you have a standard vagianal birth, might not be too much (couple of thousand maybe?) but if you need any sort of intervention (c-section, anaesthesia) it can be very expensive...
Whereas you can access all this for free, if you are a public patient.
And that's not even considering if (and I pray that this will NEVER happen to you) you need to put your newborn into the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) or SCN (special care nursery), which has very high costs due to the level of care in these nurseries.
Good luck! Try not to get too freaked out by it all!
Have spoken to my insurer and they have confirmed I will be covered as a Private Patient in
a Public Hospital. So I still get to choose my own OB.
So I think I am going to go down this path. But now I need some info
on OB's in South East Melbourne who will deliver in a Private Hospital....any ideas???
Thanks so much again! A lot of the anxiety has turned into excitement now
BellyBelly Life Subscriber
Then you'd have to add on private hospital costs... which if you have a standard vagianal birth, might not be too much (couple of thousand maybe?) but if you need any sort of intervention (c-section, anaesthesia) it can be very expensive...
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