Health Insurance

[Baron Vo Mandor]

$500 hospital excess for an upcomming hospital procedure

 

[cleary89]

I pay about $32 a fortnight for the basics with teachers health fund. Haven't found much use of it. But my footy club recommends having it.

Claimed about $300 worth of dental stuff recently, might start getting massages, physio and chiro and stuff. Feel like a dickhead calling up for it when I have no idea what they could do, but meh might as well use it.

Can also claim gym membership.

 

[Baron Vo Mandor]

For a gastrosocopy, colonoscopy, drs gap, anthedist, hammy banding, and a couple of biopsy's all said and done with mid level health insurance for day surgery was out of pocket about a $1000 on top.

If I need to go in again, I get my $500 hospital excess waived ats that's only paid once a year.

Good value.

 

[GW.]

Gw here,
Do any basic ones cover plastic surgery for non cosmetic reasons?

 

[The Charlatan]

Can't give you any advice but I am also interested in this topic. Mainly due to the wife and I looking at having a kid next year.

The whole thing seems like a scam to me tbh. I've been to the docs exactly twice in the past 5 years, both for actual medical problems which I didn't have to pay to get fixed anyway so not really sure what benefit I'm going to get out of it.

Would be interested to know how those that do have it actually get their money's worth out of it.

If you want to go private for the birth of your child, it's worth it. And if you actually need it for shit. My wife has contacts and uses PHI for it, I use it for my glasses and it encourages us to visit the dentist far more often now. You can also get remedial massages, gym memberships and the like written off by it as well.

We got PHI purely for pregnancy to start off. Originally with health.com.au but they recently hiked their premiums to $166 a fortnight. Just changed to Bupa with medium level hospital cover (due to my f**ked heart, medium coverage is basically the same less weight loss surgeries and pregnancy as we only plan on having one.) That's $120 a fortnight. Moreover, our son is exempt from the hospital excess.

 

[Mogsheen Jadwat]

PHI is one of those things that you have to keep spending money on in order to get any benefit out of it, ie proactive care/treatment.

I try to use my physio, remedial massage and dental 'entitlements' every year, otherwise you're really just throwing money away under the guise of 'what if'

 

[The Charlatan]

Pretty much Mog. Our first six months was a waste, but we grew to learn what we could use it to subsidise. We get a good return from it now, moreso since we reduced our unnecessary high level hospital cover.

 

[alien]

it's normally others who i know who get sick or hurt and need to go to the hospital (or wherever) but today it was my turn. i was walking bare foot at home and i stepped on something in the kitchen (not sure what) and i couldn't get the bloody thing out as it was in too deep, so i went to the doctor and he said he couldn't do anything about it, and he told me to go to the hospital. so i did and she gave me a tetanus shot (first needle i've had since i was around 11 i think) and i had an x-ray done on my foot and he said he could see something in my foot but they needed me to get an ultra sound on my foot for a better look, so they told me to go to this other place and they are already booked all week but told me to go to another place on monday (5 days away) which is annoying because sometimes my foot hurts like a sensesmaybenumbed.
anyway.. if i had private health insurance, would i have been able to get an ultra sound any earlier???

 

[The Charlatan]

it's normally others who i know who get sick or hurt and need to go to the hospital (or wherever) but today it was my turn. i was walking bare foot at home and i stepped on something in the kitchen (not sure what) and i couldn't get the bloody thing out as it was in too deep, so i went to the doctor and he said he couldn't do anything about it, and he told me to go to the hospital. so i did and she gave me a tetanus shot (first needle i've had since i was around 11 i think) and i had an x-ray done on my foot and he said he could see something in my foot but they needed me to get an ultra sound on my foot for a better look, so they told me to go to this other place and they are already booked all week but told me to go to another place on monday (5 days away) which is annoying because sometimes my foot hurts like a sensesmaybenumbed.
anyway.. if i had private health insurance, would i have been able to get an ultra sound any earlier???

Not sure how it all works. If you choose to go private for procedures and major operations you certainly get in quicker, not so sure about medical imaging procedures like ultrasounds.

 

[Mogsheen Jadwat]

Depends who you are and what type of cover you have - if you had that rolled in gold coverage you could probably find somewhere/someone that would squeeze you in, otherwise yeah if they're booked out you'd have to wait like everyone else.

The real benefit to PHI is as Charlatan said, for major surgery/operations etc you get in a lot faster. Mate of mine did an ACL and had his operation 2 weeks later in a private hospital, own room, all the bells and whistles. Still had a 2k excess but if he was in the public system he would've been waiting months.

 

[sportive cupid]

The benefit of private health insurance for obstetrics services is a bit of a double edged sword really .
Antenatally theres lots of benefits to public hospitals which have continuity of midwifery care programs for regular pregnancies .The advantage is that the midwifery based programs have a more normalising /personalised /demedicalised approach for what is essentially a natural process.Private obstetrician care is highly medicalised and there are stats which support the idea that if you go to a private hospital with a private dr you are more likely to have an instrumental.delivery (less than optimal for the woman).

Private obstetricians and hospitals dont have access to public funded programs for complex psycho/social /mental health situations and there is is kind of belief that those things only happen to poor public patients (but I assure you they dont just happen to them).
Some private practices have their own staff attached ..but thats costly and sometimes not rebatable.

All in all,having had my children as a private patient ,and having worked in a public obstetric system...i would probably not be taking out PHI just for that ..

I guess the real message is we should all be pushing/voting for quality,funded universal health care for all.We all benefit from that

 

[The Charlatan]

The benefit of private health insurance for obstetrics services is a bit of a double edged sword really .
Antenatally theres lots of benefits to public hospitals which have continuity of midwifery care programs for regular pregnancies .The advantage is that the midwifery based programs have a more normalising /personalised /demedicalised approach for what is essentially a natural process.Private obstetrician care is highly medicalised and there are stats which support the idea that if you go to a private hospital with a private dr you are more likely to have an instrumental.delivery (less than optimal for the woman).

Private obstetricians and hospitals dont have access to public funded programs for complex psycho/social /mental health situations and there is is kind of belief that those things only happen to poor public patients (but I assure you they dont just happen to them).
Some private practices have their own staff attached ..but thats costly and sometimes not rebatable.

All in all,having had my children as a private patient ,and having worked in a public obstetric system...i would probably not be taking out PHI just for that ..

I guess the real message is we should all be pushing/voting for quality,funded universal health care for all.We all benefit from that

It's not unreasonable to agree with the last line SC. With a quality public health system, PHI becomes relatively redundant.

 

[Stewbum]

I've been thinking about health insurance lately due to the government going to tax me even more if I don't get it (coz I'm over 30).
Main thing I'm after in terms of extras would be optical and dental.

Who here has some?

How much (if you don't mind)?

What do you have as extras?

It's the greatest extortion racquet known to man.

My advice, join, don't pay for more than you need, and then use the public system for everything you can. Its only use is to avoid waiting lists in the public system. Never tell an ambulance you have private cover, nor your doctor, nor any medical practitioner until a bill is thrust under your nose for which you can make a claim.

 

[shaggs]

it's normally others who i know who get sick or hurt and need to go to the hospital (or wherever) but today it was my turn. i was walking bare foot at home and i stepped on something in the kitchen (not sure what) and i couldn't get the bloody thing out as it was in too deep, so i went to the doctor and he said he couldn't do anything about it, and he told me to go to the hospital. so i did and she gave me a tetanus shot (first needle i've had since i was around 11 i think) and i had an x-ray done on my foot and he said he could see something in my foot but they needed me to get an ultra sound on my foot for a better look, so they told me to go to this other place and they are already booked all week but told me to go to another place on monday (5 days away) which is annoying because sometimes my foot hurts like a sensesmaybenumbed.
anyway.. if i had private health insurance, would i have been able to get an ultra sound any earlier???

Late bump, but here is the answer to your query.

Private health insurance has no bearing on medical imaging.
Private health insurance will only pay a portion of the costs when you have imaging performed as an inpatient of a private hospital.

If you have imaging done when you are an outpatient you will have some out of pocket expense that isn't covered by Medicare, unless you go to a fully bulk billed practice.

In my experience we charge a full fee at the time of imaging. This amount is paid in full once the test is complete. An invoice/receipt is given for claiming at Medicare. If you are registered with Medicare, ie bank details etc, a claim can be made on the spot.

Private health insurance is irrelevant to you getting a scan done sooner or later. This is always only based on urgency and/or whether or bit the specialist has requested an urgent fit in.
At my practice we will always image you within 48 hours maximum. Usually within 24hrs. If there are no spots, extra hours are added so that patients aren't left waiting for days.

As for your ailment. I would be interested to know whether the ultrasound was any use. I would have recommended a CT. but I am biased.

 

[alien]

As for your ailment. I would be interested to know whether the ultrasound was any use. I would have recommended a CT. but I am biased.

I took the image to the doctor, and he saw where the piece of coffee mug was, so he cut a circle of skin from my foot that was covering the piece of mug, to get it out. It wasn't in deep at all. It was only a tiny bit of mug, but it caused a lot of pain at times. It didn't hurt at all when the doctor cut the skin though. It stung a tiny bit after, but not much at all.

 

[SpaceMonkey]

The way I look at it I usually get at least half my premiums back per year on physio, massage and dental. The remainder is good peace of mind for any other problems that might unexpectedly crop up.