private patient in public hospital

[1MOREPLZ]

thanks everyone shall ring the public hospital and possibly pop in to my healthfund tomorrow

[Midwife Melissa]

soooo...... there will still be a fee for the stay?? we have 'hospital'cover with HCF but not covering pregnancy/ob etc....
obviously ob fees and anaethitist if needed but do you pay for using their delivery suite etc??

feel like a retard asking these questions..... because i have gone public with the older three and desperatly want a VBA3C...and this particular OB has said he will support me....

You'd be out of pocket for a private midwife or a private obstetrician + anaesthetist, paed etc. You'll need to check with your health fund about payment for the hospital stay - from what ypu're saying, it wounds like you wouldn't be covered for the hospital stay but your health fund might decide to cover you anyway. VBAMC success rates are almost 0% with an ob and much higher with private midwifery care.

[teresa]

i was a private patient in a public hospital due to massive pregnancy complications and the private hospital i was booked into wouldnt take me especially since DS was born 6 weeks premmie. all i had to pay was my gap. all my ob fees were covered by my fund. i had a public anaethetist for my section and i booked DS in as a public patient as at that time my health fund refused to cover him once he was born until he was 2 months old (my new fund will now cover a baby the moment he/she is born). your health fund will get a bill which they will happily pay. i think my bill was $10,000 for 8 day stay and that covered ob, delivery and boarding costs. i did get a single room but that was due to my complications.

[butterfly_warrior]

I think you may have some issues if you aren't covered for pregnancy in using your private health insurance.

Our PHI did not cover us for IVF related things - they only covered certain items when we went to hospital for egg collections. When I was hospitalised for a week with bad OHSS, we got slugged with a bill of nearly $2000 as somewhere along the line things were changed from "ovarian disfunction" to "OHSS" and then they said it was an IVF related illness and they would therefore not cover us fully. I think you will find similar things will happen trying to use PHI for a pregnancy related hospital admission if you are not covered for pregnancy.

BW

[UntoldAngel]

I went in as a private patient, with a private Ob, in a public hospital. My PHI didn't cover private hospital for pregnancy.
I only had to pay for my Ob (naturally). Everything else, including the epidural was covered. I did get a private room as there was one available on my admittance, and most will give you two parking tokens / newspapers etc
If you are looking at having a private Ob, check that they birth at your chosen hospital - there are quite a few Ob's here that won't birth in the public system

In regards to the excess, apparently the hospital will send the bill to the PHI and they will determine if they cover the whole expense, or if you have a gap to pay (that's what I was told anyway)

Good luck