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Hi All,
I have just found out I am almost 7 weeks pregnent. Unexpected, however very exciting but confussing too.
So have been looking into Hospitals, OB's etc...I don't have the right level of cover for Private Health.
I would like to go to a Private Obstetrician and Possibly a Private Hospital (in South East Melbourne)
But I'm so confussed about fee's, what costs are involved and whats claimable through Medicare or even Tax
Just wondering if some can point me in the right direction?
Thanks :)
hi Vianna,
Congrats on the pg!! I cant really help you because I dont know much about that stuff. but just wanted to welcome you the fourm and say congrats!!!
Hi Vianna,
Congrats on the pg. :)
Without private cover you will be up for almost all the hospital fees yourself, medicare covers very little. I think my statements from MBF said that they had paid out around $3000 for my VBs and closer to $6000 for my C/S.
The ob fees are up to you irrelevant of private health cover, but you get about half back from medicare. If you reach your safety net then you get almost all of your ob fees back. If you ask the obs they will have bool;ets detailing fees and medicare rebates for each thing.
congrats on ur pregnancy!
my hospital stay for a VB was $6000 but it was covered by my phi, so if u dont have the cover you would be up for that sort of fee plus ur OB fee's which can be anywhere from $2500-$6000+ some of which u can get back from medicare...
once u hit medical spending of $2k you can claim some back on tax, for some reasone i thought 20% but that seems to high?
then there may be paed fee's if bub requires on, anesthetic fee's if u have a epidural, etc....
Thanks all for your input! Would still love some more!
Would also love any stories or experiences in public hospital?
What chances would I get of a room to myself and is it really true that you can only stay for 48 hours??
hi vianni, welcome to bb & congrats on your PG :) i hope you find a wealth of information on bb - i know it was a lifesaver for me when i was PG with my DS!
i had my DS in a public hospital in melbourne & will be having #2 at a public hospital as well. the biggest negative for me was the waiting time for each appointment. i would regularly wait up to an hour & a half for my appt. i went to a big tertiary hospital & was in the high risk category so that meant i had to see obs/GP-obs. i mention that because a friend who has gone through the birth centre at the same public hospital didn't have the same waiting times.
apart from that i was mostly happy with my experience. i always felt that i would receive the best possible care & that they had all the facilities to cope with pretty much any eventuality. the midwives during labour were fantastic & the ob that did the assisted delivery was great at doing everything possible to avoid a c-section (a positive for me). i ended up with a room to myself - a complete fluke really but nice all the same.
i'm not sure if there is a max time you can stay but i left about 38 hours after giving birth but that was my choice - i asked to leave because i wanted to get home. they hadn't been able to complete some tests so a midwife visited me at home the next day to do them. they also sent another midwife a few days later to see how i was going - and to help with breastfeeding.
i didn't have to pay for anything (well, the tv if i'd wanted it :lol:) and i think the care i received was pretty good. overall i wasn't unhappy with the care but could have lived without the waiting time for appts!
Hi ViannaM, congratulations on your pregnancy!
I have health insurance but I found the whole thing pretty confusing and ended up going public anyway :lol: To answer your question about public - couldn't fault it in my experience. My hospital had about 6 private rooms which were all being used when I had my son. However I was put in a double room with no one else in it so still didn't have to share! I only stayed overnight but am pretty sure I could've stayed for 3 nights if I wanted.
I'm having this bub at the same hospital and hoping to go home on the same day. I am going through a program where you have the same midwife for all appointments, as well as for labour etc. Your local public hospital may offer something similar if you're wanting that continuity of care. Good luck!
Hi Vianna
Congratulations on your surprise ! I would suggest ringing the particular hospital your interested in and ask them what your costs would be. Unless you have an
unlimited money pitt, I wouldnt take the risk of entering a private hospital without insurance. I have to call my insurance company 3 months prior to the birth of our little
one and add baby to our cover, so he/she is covered ; as baby becomes a patient once they are born, and if they had to go into nicu for jaundice etc I would be up for a fortune.
There are wonderful public womens hospitals in Melbourne ; the stay at the major one is 2 nights after a general birth, and you have to live within a certain zone to be acceppted into it, so thats another suggestion, to call the public hospital and see if your in their zone.
The tax rebate is 20 % once your outa pocket
Congratulations.
What kind of care do you want? What's important to you?
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 :o 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! :D
Thanks so much for all your help!
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 :)
Just a few articles that might be helpful:
Questions to ask before choosing an OB
Public, Private, Birth Centre or Home?
Who cares? Choosing a model of maternity care
Will your baby be born in a baby friendly hospital?
You've been given a whole heap of great advice and suggestion already, just thought I would throw in my own experience :)
I went through the public system and found it top notch. I went through a Homebirth program run by a public hospital, which was fantastic. All my appointments were at home, my midwives came to us. They provided a birth pool in our home too. I ended up giving birth in the hospital, and the care there was great. We still had our Homebirth midwife with us, and I chose to discharge 9 hours after giving birth. As HotI said, looking at a private midwife to be with you in the hospital or even at home is a great idea, as a private midwife can do your appointments at home and you can build a beautiful and trusting relationship with them, hospital or home :) Welcome to BB.